The Family

Papa loved to play with Asha’s dolls. His favorite was the frayed beauty which could shut only one eye when laid on its back. On a leisurely Sunday morning, he claimed that the dear thing loved to give him a wink. Mama retorted that it had permanently shut one eye, since he had begun handling it; that it probably wanted to see only one half of him, which was bad enough! Asha giggled. Papa glared at the child and threatened to throw her doll into the ocean. Mama suggested that he rise early every day and practice hard for a long throw since the nearest ocean was over a thousand miles away! Asha giggled more and Papa stormed out of the room, promising to become a pirate!

The other day Mama baked a chocolate cake. The smell wafting around the house was perplexing. The first piece was offered to the birthday boy, Sonny. Sonny was the family cat. After taking an exploratory sniff, it fled from the kitchen with its tail between its legs and hid for long under the big sofa in the living room. It would not emerge despite much cajoling. Mama called him a spoilt and ungrateful brat.

“You mean, ‘cat’,” Asha had remarked.

“No! I very well mean ‘brat’, silly girl!” Mama shot back, glaring at her.

Some days later Asha was watching a ‘Tom & Jerry’ cartoon in the living room. Sonny, ignoring all threats, was leaping up and trying to catch Jerry, while growling at Tom. One miscalculated hop and it landed on top of the TV. In the process, it knocked to the floor Papa’s prized souvenir brought from Holland seven years ago. (He had been included in a visiting delegation due to an oversight. This had been discovered during a discussion in Amsterdam. Subsequently, the hosts had, very pointedly, indicated that they would have preferred all the visiting members to be able to distinguish between a tulip and an orchid.)

Anyway, cutting a medium story short, Papa let out an anguished cry and rushed to pick up the souvenir from the floor. Fortunately, it was of a sturdy metal and was just slightly dented in a couple of places.

Describing Sonny as a devil in cat’s clothing, he loudly announced his intention to dismember him as soon as he could get his hands on a sharp knife. He pointed out that there was a perpetual shortage of this item in the house. Mama’s expression, on hearing this, could have curdled at least two gallons of milk in a wink!

As was expected, Papa could not locate a sharp knife and Sonny survived!

Mohan was the teenage son. In trying to identify with his generation, Papa would have beer with him on Sundays and ignore him on other days. Mama would hover around the beer session, muttering softly.

On one such occasion, Papa told her, “My dear! You know very well that I cannot let you have beer. Imagine what the children would think?”

Mama stopped and, looking daggers at him, remarked that some fathers needed to pull up their socks. Papa remarked that he did not need to do that since he rarely wore socks and shoes. He liked to air his feet all the time.

Mama thumped her head in despair and wailed, “When is an incarnation coming again? Oh when?”

Papa and Mohan had this running battle over ownership of shirts. It was greatly unfortunate that both were about the same build and had the same taste. Mohan borrowed all the time and without as much as a ‘by your leave’.

One day Papa seemed to have had enough of it all. He planted some pepper and chilly powder laced shirts on his shelf. He did not forget to note their colors. He did not touch them. Curiously, neither did Mohan. Three days passed. No anguished cries were heard.

On the fourth day, around 11am, Papa received a telephone call. He was informed that he had won twenty-five dollars in the state lottery. His whoop of joy rattled the window panes and made mama run out of the house. She thought that there had been an earthquake.

Papa was asked to report to the lottery agent’s office.

Everything was forgotten. Papa had only ‘twenty-five’ on his mind. He sprinted into the bedroom to change.

Some moments later, a scream from that room indicated that other hot matters had been quickly brought to his mind.

One memorable day, Grandma dropped in. As in the past, the visit would be for a couple of weeks. The aged lady had made this very clear on the doorstep, even before being greeted by Mama’s hug. With her sharp eyesight, she had spotted Papa’s stricken face over Mama’s shoulders and had sought to twist the knife in the deep wound. Further rapid disintegration of Papa’s composure bore ample testimony to the success of her maneuvres.

There was much enthusiasm in Sonny’s greeting, though. The excited cat short-circuited greeting procedures. Doing away with the initial leg-rubbing step, it leapt straight up into Grandma’s arms. She cooed and ooed over it for nearly an hour.

Papa fled to the shelter of his workshop. He lay down on the worktable, wondering if there was some way he could sleep on continuously for a fortnight. The dryness in his throat and the weakening of his bowels indicated, in no uncertain manner, that there were none.

A week down the line, some of his friends remarked that he was beginning to look like a monkey which had misplaced its tail.

Grandma left shortly and Papa’s health began to improve. Gradually, he shed the I-have- died look.

One wonderful spring morning, Papa was having a solitary breakfast. The lovely weather had rubbed itself on Mama.

She called out, affectionately, to him from the kitchen, “Honey!”

He called back brightly, “No, dear! I prefer the marmalade today and it is right here on the table.”

This was followed by a very energetic discussion on common terms of endearment and the need to be familiar with them, in order to prevent the human civilization from rapidly degenerating to the level of apes. Papa could contribute little to this discussion since, most of the time, his mouth was full.

Mohan’s friend, Mona, visited often. Mama had made it clear in very certain terms to her that she did not approve of her. On one occasion, she had even served tea laced with a hefty tot of vinegar. The ‘nitwit girl’ had gently sipped at it with much relish.

Complimenting Mama, she had said, “Aunty, your tea is out of this world! It is more refreshing than a salad!” Finishing it, she had insisted on washing the cup and saucer. She had carefully wiped them dry before putting them away.

Mama had gnashed her false teeth in despair. She had been quite determined that, next time, Mona would turn into a staring nut after the second sip.

To attain her ends, she needed to locate a recipe book. It had been rescued from the old newspaper buyer almost a year back. She loved the title - ‘101 Friendly Ways To Turn Your Enemies Into Zombies’. 

Anyway, the book was traced and a concoction was put together by Mama on the sly. Seven and a half drops of it were added to the cup of tea which was served to Mona when she visited again. Mama sat upright on her sofa and watched her like a curious hawk.

Mona loved every drop of the beverage.

Giving Mama one of her cutest smiles, Mona said, “Oh auntie! I will pray for a mother-in-law like you!” And Mama turned into a zombie for a week!

She was very proud of her impressive vegetable garden. Measuring about two meters long and a meter wide, it was a sea of greenery, with vegetable plants bravely peeping out from the carpet of weeds. Cabbages the size of medium potatoes and tomatoes the size of large peas grew in abundance there.

She declared that they were rare Guatemalan variety, grown exclusively for pickles. Papa commented that they were rare because of Mama’s loving care and that he begged forgiveness for the rhyme! The ensuing discussion saw the folding up of the touch-me-nots on account of Mama’s pickled language!

She became more tight-lipped and narrow-eyed. One day she misplaced her spectacles. Papa pointed out that she would not need a reading aid anymore. After all, her eyes were almost shut tight all the time and she sniffed her way around. Mama’s aim was erratic. Otherwise, the ashtray would have brained Papa!

Grandma visited more often, leading to a rapid deterioration of Papa’s state of mind. This was detected when he was secretly observed simmering ice-cream at midnight before sipping it from his favorite teacup.

It was further reinforced when he bought thousand and one large cans of talcum powder at a discount sale. The bulk had to be stored under all the beds in the house. Three shelves

of the wardrobe in the guest room had to be emptied for the balance. There was a suggestion that they could be given away to flood victims. Much fragrant charity was done in the subsequent months.

Mohan began to be seen lesser than in these pages. It was rumored that he had signed up with a zoo as a janitor in order to fulfill his burning ambition to handle the droppings of exotic species.

Asha giggled along. She trained to become an operation-theatre nurse. She would giggle through complicated and critical surgery. She married a poker-faced doughnut, whose laughing muscles were dead, since he was four years old when he had been trampled on by an annoyed buffalo.

Sonny passed on peacefully after a long life. A week of mourning was declared, despite Papa’s dissent. All the curtains in the house were hung in the halfway position and only bhajan programs were seen on TV.

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