My daughters have picked up/inherited sarcastic wit from their father. As a result they would reply to some of my questions in a roundabout way which simply wouldn't reach my brain and I would take them too literally for their comfort. Then they would be forced to translate the same into a straight statement which is maddening for them!
Once when my elder daughter was in elementary school I was packing her lunch. She asked me to pack some halwah (Sweet) brought by her uncle on his visit the previous day. I asked her, "Why?"
She replied, 'See you have packed Idlis for my lunch. If I mix it with the Halwah and make a paste of it for lunch it tastes divine!'
Taking her literally, I replied innocently, "Oh, I see. This is a new dish I have never tried out myself. Should try it sometime." And proceeded with packing some halwah.
My daughter stood there silently for a few minutes overcoming the dumb reaction to her sarcasm and then burst out to say, "Mummy, I just said that to tell you 'what a question, I just want the halwah as a snack for the rescess!"
I replied, "Then why didn't you just say so?"
By this time she had started laughing: "And please don't try out the 'new dish!' "
My co-sisters (other daughter-in-laws in my husband's fsamily-he has three more brothers besides his only sister-all of whom are masters in this art of sarcastic wit, thanks to the genes passed on by my late father-in-law!) would discuss this aspect of our daily exchanges in our families and we would have a hilarious time recollecting the happenings at each one of our homes which would have the same tone to them. Juxtaposed with a very literal mind, the sarcasm often fails to have the desired effect! This way we outsiders act as a buffer zone for their wit which would have otherwise become too sharp for comfort in their interaction with society at large. So we say to ourselves modestly, in defence of our being very slow on the uptake of their wit:-)
Monday, May 10, 2010
Armour against sarcasm!
The tendency to express anything sarcastically sometimes backfires. To understand any clever remark that has a figurative meaning you need an audience that has a modicum of intelligence. Which is unfortunately missing in a section of the population at least. This has led to many a hilarious situation in our daily lives among the general public apart from the setting of our family.Once we were travelling to Kumbakonam via Chidambaram, the temple town. We had stopped at a small hotel in the town to have our lunch. The waiter spread out washed banana leaves which serve as disposable plates in South India. He then kept stainless steel glasses for water to drink, before everyone seated. Unfortunately he had skipped my husband's place and gone back to bring the water jug. He then proceeded to pour water into each tumbler.When he came to my husband's place, my husband asked him "Where is my water?"The waiter blinked to see that there was no glass in his place and being the dumb person he was,said:"Where should I pour the water?"My husband replied angrily,"Pour it on my head!"Whereupon this man actually started to tilt the jug above my husband's head and I stopped him just in time saying,"He is angry and so he said like that! Don't you realize that? Just bring a glass and serve the water!"The man muttered something about why we should not have said so in the first place and went inside to do that.The minute he turned his back, I promptly burst out laughing thinking of what might have happened, had I not stopped the waiter. My husband also thought of the same thing and seeing me laughing joined us grinning.Lesson learnt: You should use your sarcasm only where it would pierce the brain and prick, not where it hardly makes a dent-for dumbness makes a mighty armour against sarcasm!
Humour at Home
My husband has a great sense of humour. In fact all his siblings share this trait. As a result all our family gatherings are a riot of jokes and funny anecdotes and every few minutes there would be a burst of laughter! I am very fortunate to be married into his family, considering how acutely we lack the art of repartee in my side of the family! My daughters have taken after him and the funny retorts continue to this day at home:-)
My father-in-law was the original quick repartee champion and all his children have taken after him. In this context, it is relevant to remember that my mother-in-law and myself are a bit slow to catch on to the sarcasm involved in these exchanges. In fact all the daughters in law sadly lack this trait and wake up to their sarcasm rather late! It makes it all the more easier for the 'Mandhis' -(monkeys)-(as my husband's family has been nicknamed, in revenge, by all the daughters -in law, after their family name of 'Mandhikanakkans' in the days of yore-which suits them very well when you consider their antics!) to tease us 'outsiders' non-stop in any family gatherings as we slowly fumble through their quick comments!
Ours was an arranged marriage like most of the marriages in our country. We had hardly looked at each other before the wedding day and any talking before the wedding day was unthinkable thirty years back! The very first time I started a conversation with my husband was the day of our marriage when we travelled by car (from my home town where our wedding had taken place in the early morning) to his place where a reception was being held.
On the way we stopped for some refreshments and we bought tender cucumbers to eat along with a drink of tender coconut water. The roadside stall had both and the man started cutting the top off the cocnut when my new husband noticed that I was still nibbling at the cucumbers. He asked me, "Oh you still haven't finished eating the cucumbers?"
I replied:
'My granny has told me that you would live to be a hundred years if you chew your food well"
For which my hasband replied:
"It is better to live a fifty years eating fast and enjoying the rest of the time instead of spending the additional fifty years in the act of eating!"
I burst into laughter. With this, the ice was broken and he started asking me whether I knew anything about his workplace in the north-which was the city of Pune. I was still in college then and remembered a geographical fact about the city.
"I know that it is in the rain-shadow region of Maharashtra and that it gets less rainfall than the city of Mumbai which is but a hundred kilometres from there". Then, to make conversation I asked, "Is it true you get less rain?"
My husband stared at me a moment and then exclaimed, "Of course, we don't get much rains there. In fact it is almost a desert and we have to ride camels to go anywhere in the city as otherwise commuting is very difficult. In fact I rode on a camel to reach the railway station....." when I realized slowly that he was pulling my leg!
And so I got initiated into his clan's brand of humour!
My father-in-law was the original quick repartee champion and all his children have taken after him. In this context, it is relevant to remember that my mother-in-law and myself are a bit slow to catch on to the sarcasm involved in these exchanges. In fact all the daughters in law sadly lack this trait and wake up to their sarcasm rather late! It makes it all the more easier for the 'Mandhis' -(monkeys)-(as my husband's family has been nicknamed, in revenge, by all the daughters -in law, after their family name of 'Mandhikanakkans' in the days of yore-which suits them very well when you consider their antics!) to tease us 'outsiders' non-stop in any family gatherings as we slowly fumble through their quick comments!
Ours was an arranged marriage like most of the marriages in our country. We had hardly looked at each other before the wedding day and any talking before the wedding day was unthinkable thirty years back! The very first time I started a conversation with my husband was the day of our marriage when we travelled by car (from my home town where our wedding had taken place in the early morning) to his place where a reception was being held.
On the way we stopped for some refreshments and we bought tender cucumbers to eat along with a drink of tender coconut water. The roadside stall had both and the man started cutting the top off the cocnut when my new husband noticed that I was still nibbling at the cucumbers. He asked me, "Oh you still haven't finished eating the cucumbers?"
I replied:
'My granny has told me that you would live to be a hundred years if you chew your food well"
For which my hasband replied:
"It is better to live a fifty years eating fast and enjoying the rest of the time instead of spending the additional fifty years in the act of eating!"
I burst into laughter. With this, the ice was broken and he started asking me whether I knew anything about his workplace in the north-which was the city of Pune. I was still in college then and remembered a geographical fact about the city.
"I know that it is in the rain-shadow region of Maharashtra and that it gets less rainfall than the city of Mumbai which is but a hundred kilometres from there". Then, to make conversation I asked, "Is it true you get less rain?"
My husband stared at me a moment and then exclaimed, "Of course, we don't get much rains there. In fact it is almost a desert and we have to ride camels to go anywhere in the city as otherwise commuting is very difficult. In fact I rode on a camel to reach the railway station....." when I realized slowly that he was pulling my leg!
And so I got initiated into his clan's brand of humour!
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Which vegetable is this?
I was a newly married girl just settled in my marital home in Pune with my husband .(Actually still a teenager, as my parents arranged a marriage with a 'suitable boy' when I was still in college!) In fact I was still attending the final year of my college and my experience in cooking was still in the rudimentary stage. I could cook a South Indian meal, both veg and non-veg, though my cooking was confined to the most common vegetables available.
When my parents and relatives left us after a week of settling me down in my new home, I was inconsolable. As a distraction, my husband took me shopping for vegetables. He said he would like 'poosanikkai' (ashgourd) sambar and asked me to buy a piece of it. We were standing in front of a stall which had big ball-like vegetables stacked in the front. One was yellow in colour and the other was green. I knew one of them was 'posanikkai' but didn't know which one.
I could not ask the shopkeeper for 'poosanikkai' in Marathi or Hindi as I didn't know the equivalent name in those languages. Confusion! Gathering a bit of courage, I stammered out to my new husband whether he knew which was 'poosanikkai' and then I could point it out to the shopkeeper to cut a piece of it. He was flabbergasted to find out that his wife didn't even know enough about cooking to identify his favourite vegetables and his face was a study in shock! He must have thought that his future home meals would be complete disasters, going by this experience.
But I acquitted myself well enough in my very first dinner as my chicken preparation with all the masala from my mother's recipe outshone the one he and his friend had been preparing in his bachelor days in 'British style' (with only pepper and salt)! As it was a Sunday he had bought a whole dressed chicken for me to preapre. (In our family we always prepare non-veg meals on Sundays and the poosanikkai was stored in the fridge for the next day's cooking.) So he forgot the 'poosanikkai' episode soon enough. Of course I didn't tell him until after the dinner that it was the very first time I had touched a dressed chicken! (My mother never let me prepare chicken in our house as I might have spoiled Sunday's lunch by experimenting the main dish with my beginner's attempt.) And it was quite a fight to cut it into pieces-my husband also never knew till a few weeks later, from his friend who was also newly married but a few months before us, that the shopkeeper would cut the chicken into manageable pieces, if we so asked.
But after this now-funny incident was recounted by me to all my relatives amidst laughter, any girl who didn't show any interest in cooking was immediately supported by her doting parents, quoting this incident. If 'P'(me) who couldn't identify poosanikkai could cook for a dozen people within a few days of her marriage, anyone could learn cooking in days!
When my parents and relatives left us after a week of settling me down in my new home, I was inconsolable. As a distraction, my husband took me shopping for vegetables. He said he would like 'poosanikkai' (ashgourd) sambar and asked me to buy a piece of it. We were standing in front of a stall which had big ball-like vegetables stacked in the front. One was yellow in colour and the other was green. I knew one of them was 'posanikkai' but didn't know which one.
I could not ask the shopkeeper for 'poosanikkai' in Marathi or Hindi as I didn't know the equivalent name in those languages. Confusion! Gathering a bit of courage, I stammered out to my new husband whether he knew which was 'poosanikkai' and then I could point it out to the shopkeeper to cut a piece of it. He was flabbergasted to find out that his wife didn't even know enough about cooking to identify his favourite vegetables and his face was a study in shock! He must have thought that his future home meals would be complete disasters, going by this experience.
But I acquitted myself well enough in my very first dinner as my chicken preparation with all the masala from my mother's recipe outshone the one he and his friend had been preparing in his bachelor days in 'British style' (with only pepper and salt)! As it was a Sunday he had bought a whole dressed chicken for me to preapre. (In our family we always prepare non-veg meals on Sundays and the poosanikkai was stored in the fridge for the next day's cooking.) So he forgot the 'poosanikkai' episode soon enough. Of course I didn't tell him until after the dinner that it was the very first time I had touched a dressed chicken! (My mother never let me prepare chicken in our house as I might have spoiled Sunday's lunch by experimenting the main dish with my beginner's attempt.) And it was quite a fight to cut it into pieces-my husband also never knew till a few weeks later, from his friend who was also newly married but a few months before us, that the shopkeeper would cut the chicken into manageable pieces, if we so asked.
But after this now-funny incident was recounted by me to all my relatives amidst laughter, any girl who didn't show any interest in cooking was immediately supported by her doting parents, quoting this incident. If 'P'(me) who couldn't identify poosanikkai could cook for a dozen people within a few days of her marriage, anyone could learn cooking in days!
Monday, October 05, 2009
Did I know Hindi?
When I got married I joined my husband who was working in a city in the north. As we were taught only our mother tongue Tamil and English in the school, the few words in Hindi I did know were all picked up from the Hindi films I had watched. (When I was in sixth standard, the anti-Hindi agitation came to a head and our Hindi classes stopped. Our Hindi Pandit was designated as the new moral science teacher as she had been made redundant by the new rule banning Hindi from schools!)
Around the time I was in high school, English films were banned in India (along with Coca Cola etc.,) and so, even the small towns we lived in during the course of my father's transfers through Tamilnadu, started screening blockbuster Hindi movies like Bobby and Aradhana. From these movies we picked up a smattering of Hindi words. Well, I knew 'acha' meant 'good', 'aavo' meant 'come' and all the other 'kuthe kaminey and neechey' were swear words uttered by the distressed towards the villains and were of no use for day-to-day use in my new life.
My parents, little sister, uncle and aunt came to settle me in my new home. The shopping seemed very easy to me as my Mom and Aunt managed to buy things after pointing at the things they needed for cooking during the week they stayed with us. Even my little sister managed to get curry leaves from the corner vegetable vendor by herself! I thought it was no big deal that I didn't know Hindi as I could very well manage with English. Alas! Little did I know that the vegetable seller, the newspaper boy, the electrician, the old newspaper buyer, the milkman- in short, all the persons we come into contact with in our daily life- knew very few words in English! My people left on a Saturday and the next day being a Sunday my husband took me to a movie and the market. I was very much impressed by the fluent Hindi he spoke to the shopkeepers and despaired what I could do all alone in the house when he went to work!
Before leaving for work the next day, a Monday, my husband wrote these words in a note:
'Sahib ab ghar mein nahii. Baadh mein aavo. Shaam che baje ke badh!' (Sir not at home now. Come later. After 6 pm).
I was to memorise these words and recite them any person who rang the doorbell during the course of the day. I told these words to the ruddywalah who, seeing the hitherto locked-during the daytime-house being occupied- came to see if there were old newspapers for disposal. I managed to get along just fine with these words and English. People were ready to oblige the new bride the banker had brought from down South and tried to understand what I wanted to say, from the accompanying gestures. Being mostly Marathis they were amazed to find a person who knew neither Marathi nor Hindi and gave me pitying looks which made me feel very dumb.
I learnt most of my basic Hindi words from the maid servant and brushed it up from the 'Learn Hindi from English' book my husband owned from his college days where he studied Hindi as a second language. I showed her all the groceries and asked her to teach me the Hindi equivalent of each item. She used to tell me the names both in Hindi and Marathi but I had to choose one language at a time and I thought that hindi being the national language might come in handy even if we got transferred out of Maharashtra and so, concentrated on the Hindi words. When I went to buy vegetables and fruits, I asked the friendly lady at the shop the Hindi names of each item and learnt them too. She also taught me the Hindi names of numbers, right from 1,2,3... and 10,20,30..... I learnt fast so much so that I could manage most shopping and money transactions with my rudimentary Hindi knowledge.
I found out that the street vendors who sold onions potatoes and tomatoes on wheeled carts selling at much lower prices than the shop and ventured out to call them from the balcony and started buying these items from them. One day I could see a man and woman team selling something in a covered basket and voicing some word whose meaning I couldn't make out. Smitten by curiosity, I called out from the balcony to stop them and went to see what they were selling, some kind of fruits....?
They spoke something in Marathi (or Hindi?) which I couldn't understand but I gestured them to open the basket. They opened and out came a cobra, hissing and flashing its forked tongue! Imagine my shock! It turned out that the day was Nag Panchami on which day it was very auspicious to worship snakes in Maharashtra and these villagers were giving doorstep service to the women in the city, earning extra money from this unique once a year business opportunity!
Around the time I was in high school, English films were banned in India (along with Coca Cola etc.,) and so, even the small towns we lived in during the course of my father's transfers through Tamilnadu, started screening blockbuster Hindi movies like Bobby and Aradhana. From these movies we picked up a smattering of Hindi words. Well, I knew 'acha' meant 'good', 'aavo' meant 'come' and all the other 'kuthe kaminey and neechey' were swear words uttered by the distressed towards the villains and were of no use for day-to-day use in my new life.
My parents, little sister, uncle and aunt came to settle me in my new home. The shopping seemed very easy to me as my Mom and Aunt managed to buy things after pointing at the things they needed for cooking during the week they stayed with us. Even my little sister managed to get curry leaves from the corner vegetable vendor by herself! I thought it was no big deal that I didn't know Hindi as I could very well manage with English. Alas! Little did I know that the vegetable seller, the newspaper boy, the electrician, the old newspaper buyer, the milkman- in short, all the persons we come into contact with in our daily life- knew very few words in English! My people left on a Saturday and the next day being a Sunday my husband took me to a movie and the market. I was very much impressed by the fluent Hindi he spoke to the shopkeepers and despaired what I could do all alone in the house when he went to work!
Before leaving for work the next day, a Monday, my husband wrote these words in a note:
'Sahib ab ghar mein nahii. Baadh mein aavo. Shaam che baje ke badh!' (Sir not at home now. Come later. After 6 pm).
I was to memorise these words and recite them any person who rang the doorbell during the course of the day. I told these words to the ruddywalah who, seeing the hitherto locked-during the daytime-house being occupied- came to see if there were old newspapers for disposal. I managed to get along just fine with these words and English. People were ready to oblige the new bride the banker had brought from down South and tried to understand what I wanted to say, from the accompanying gestures. Being mostly Marathis they were amazed to find a person who knew neither Marathi nor Hindi and gave me pitying looks which made me feel very dumb.
I learnt most of my basic Hindi words from the maid servant and brushed it up from the 'Learn Hindi from English' book my husband owned from his college days where he studied Hindi as a second language. I showed her all the groceries and asked her to teach me the Hindi equivalent of each item. She used to tell me the names both in Hindi and Marathi but I had to choose one language at a time and I thought that hindi being the national language might come in handy even if we got transferred out of Maharashtra and so, concentrated on the Hindi words. When I went to buy vegetables and fruits, I asked the friendly lady at the shop the Hindi names of each item and learnt them too. She also taught me the Hindi names of numbers, right from 1,2,3... and 10,20,30..... I learnt fast so much so that I could manage most shopping and money transactions with my rudimentary Hindi knowledge.
I found out that the street vendors who sold onions potatoes and tomatoes on wheeled carts selling at much lower prices than the shop and ventured out to call them from the balcony and started buying these items from them. One day I could see a man and woman team selling something in a covered basket and voicing some word whose meaning I couldn't make out. Smitten by curiosity, I called out from the balcony to stop them and went to see what they were selling, some kind of fruits....?
They spoke something in Marathi (or Hindi?) which I couldn't understand but I gestured them to open the basket. They opened and out came a cobra, hissing and flashing its forked tongue! Imagine my shock! It turned out that the day was Nag Panchami on which day it was very auspicious to worship snakes in Maharashtra and these villagers were giving doorstep service to the women in the city, earning extra money from this unique once a year business opportunity!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wearing flowers
When we were in school, every day we used to wear fresh flowers in our plaits whenever available. We used to hear that some schools did not allow girls to wear flowers as the jasmine and other flowers invariably got loosened from the strings and dropped on the school floor. The trash was an ugly sight no doubt and we could understand that rule. But we used to pity those girls. Wearing fresh flowers uplifted our mood and brought the great outdoors inside the classrooms in which we were cooped up.
Some girls had gardens around their houses and used to wear single roses. Or even twin jasmine flowers or 'kanakambaram' straight from the bush, with a green leaf to provide volume and contrast colour to the arrangement perched on one side of the head, usually just above an ear. Other girls (like me!) who had to buy from the vendors used to burn with envy on seeing the different and unique colours a home grown variety yielded. The common kankambaram was a boring mild orange in colour but these girls wore dark red or pleasant yellow kanakambaram strings.
Some girls wore hibiscus flowers. Not the common red five petalled ones but the 'adukku'(Layered) sembaruthi flowers in every hue of red, yellow, pink and white. Of course, the mothers would yell at us admonishing us not to wear any and every flower we found on our way to the school. It would encourage the infestation of head lice (according to the old wives' tales)! But we were so crazy after flowers that we never heeded their words and the moment we disappeared round the corner, we would pluck the hibiscus or 'arali' flowers dangling outside the compound walls of our neighbours!
Now I know why South Indian ladies (of my generation only- already girls of younger generations in the big cities have got rid of long hair and wearing flowers!) visiting other places manage to pluck a flower or two (theirs or others', it doesn't seem to matter to them) and wear it just above their ears. I grew out of this habit years ago when we moved to a North Indian city.Wearing flowers was not a daily habit as it was down South. Women wore flowers only when attending marriages or some such formal functions and festivals.
Some girls had gardens around their houses and used to wear single roses. Or even twin jasmine flowers or 'kanakambaram' straight from the bush, with a green leaf to provide volume and contrast colour to the arrangement perched on one side of the head, usually just above an ear. Other girls (like me!) who had to buy from the vendors used to burn with envy on seeing the different and unique colours a home grown variety yielded. The common kankambaram was a boring mild orange in colour but these girls wore dark red or pleasant yellow kanakambaram strings.
Some girls wore hibiscus flowers. Not the common red five petalled ones but the 'adukku'(Layered) sembaruthi flowers in every hue of red, yellow, pink and white. Of course, the mothers would yell at us admonishing us not to wear any and every flower we found on our way to the school. It would encourage the infestation of head lice (according to the old wives' tales)! But we were so crazy after flowers that we never heeded their words and the moment we disappeared round the corner, we would pluck the hibiscus or 'arali' flowers dangling outside the compound walls of our neighbours!
Now I know why South Indian ladies (of my generation only- already girls of younger generations in the big cities have got rid of long hair and wearing flowers!) visiting other places manage to pluck a flower or two (theirs or others', it doesn't seem to matter to them) and wear it just above their ears. I grew out of this habit years ago when we moved to a North Indian city.Wearing flowers was not a daily habit as it was down South. Women wore flowers only when attending marriages or some such formal functions and festivals.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Pocket Money!
The other day I heard my sister telling us that they are giving three thousand rupees as pocket money to her college going son. When my mouth fell open, she explained that it included his fuel bills and mobile phone bills.
A few years back, I remember my kids getting a hundred rupees each when they went to high school. It was for the purpose of buying birthday greeting cards for their friends and other such petty expenses. This was before the age of mobiles and so we parents did not feel the pinch as do parents of the present generation. Besides the kids didn't have their own vehicles mostly except for bicycles. For filling in air for the wheels they needed only a few coins and the parents usually accompanied them to hand out the charge for 'bigger' expense like a puncture!
This started me thinking about my own school/college days. The notion of pocket money was not even heard of. As I have said elsewhere, we were given only bus fare and we used to save ten paise everyday. I still remember how I used the saving of 3 days to buy flowers for my Mom at the Srirangam railway station and got a big hug from her. The next few days saw her telling everyone of our neighbours about the 'jathipoo' her daughter got for her. This practice lasted for the three months I travelled by the passenger train from Lalgudi to Trichy town.
When we shifted to buses in the next town, I used the money to buy 5 'pottukadalai urundai' (Sweet fried gram balls) for 25 paise and 'treat' my friends to one sweet ball each!
A few years back, I remember my kids getting a hundred rupees each when they went to high school. It was for the purpose of buying birthday greeting cards for their friends and other such petty expenses. This was before the age of mobiles and so we parents did not feel the pinch as do parents of the present generation. Besides the kids didn't have their own vehicles mostly except for bicycles. For filling in air for the wheels they needed only a few coins and the parents usually accompanied them to hand out the charge for 'bigger' expense like a puncture!
This started me thinking about my own school/college days. The notion of pocket money was not even heard of. As I have said elsewhere, we were given only bus fare and we used to save ten paise everyday. I still remember how I used the saving of 3 days to buy flowers for my Mom at the Srirangam railway station and got a big hug from her. The next few days saw her telling everyone of our neighbours about the 'jathipoo' her daughter got for her. This practice lasted for the three months I travelled by the passenger train from Lalgudi to Trichy town.
When we shifted to buses in the next town, I used the money to buy 5 'pottukadalai urundai' (Sweet fried gram balls) for 25 paise and 'treat' my friends to one sweet ball each!
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