India is great if you have a sense of humour 24x7. Here are a few things that forced humour upon me:
1. Enter the dragon...oh, I mean maid: Sure, it's a downright luxury. Surprisingly, the luxury quickly stops being luxury and becomes an everyday, multiple type injury. The marble flooring in our house has seen so many hands mop it, that if it were animate it'd burst into giggles when the new maid walked in. First, the maids never come on time, which results in my mother's blood pressure shooting through our three storeyed house. Then they rarely ever stick to their routine, that makes my dad's french moustache twitch like a drop of water on a hotplate. They almost always do a shoddy job of one thing or another, and let's not even get into their forgetfulness. I've seen my mom go through phases of forgiveness, understanding, discounting, discrediting, degrading, denouncing, anger, feeling wronged, guilt every week. After a few days of observation, I asked my maid today, 'How long shall we play this game of me putting that cardboard box near the trashcan and you putting it back on my bed?' Tomorrow, I wanna ask her the recipe for her world's thickest, yet brittlest rotis.
2. Rewind & repeat: I have a cold today. Also, I bit my tongue. Translation? Every time I talk, it hurts. I took my carpenter to a store to show the bed we want. We discussed it on the way back home. Then I discussed the same topic plus additional ones pertaining to bed with my dad. Shall we have polished wood or white wood? Shall we raise it one foot above the ground or half foot? Shall we have hooks for the curtains? Then my mom arrives, so I repeat what we discussed so far. The discussion now goes four ways. Soon, my husband arrives. He, obviously, needs all the details from the start. I drew the line when my grandmother wanted in on this. When my throats okay, she can join in our topic for the day.
3. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle my brains away: Got bell, will ring. I work upstairs. That is 23 steps away from the main door. Sure, it doesn't sound like much and you must think I'm one rich little lazy bum. How about going up and down these stairs 5 times every half hour? Exercise, right? Who doesn't need it nowadays. Now how about if you're right in the middle of drafting that tough paper and five different saleswomen wanna sell you sanitary napkins when you use tampons? How did I rustle through the angry jungle that was my mind when the bell rang the sixth time to find a shred of humour? I asked the girl to come inside, I brought her a tampon and described how to use it and why it makes better sense. She smiled awkwardly, muttered some god's name, and said she's still not married (i.e., she's a virgin).
4. Princess and the pea: Remember the story about how a king tested a strange woman who came knocking on his door claiming she was a princess? He put a pea underneath some twenty mattresses and said that a true princess would not be able to sleep coz it would be oh-so-uncomfortable for her gentler-than-a-rose petal body. (Well, that's the story I was told.) Cut to the usual mattress you'll find over here. I've only heard of stories about kids bouncing on their beds. In only movies did I see people crash onto a bed and not wince in pain. Guess we misunderstood that fairytale! But my husband and I've now got our own twist to the tale. We have an ultra expensive mattress that was designed in the UK and stuffed in India. On top of my hard mattress.
5. iCare: Told you, right? I've got a cold. So my uncle asks after me. How sweet! My granny sends rasam (hot tomato soup thing). Awww! My mom makes special, spicy curry coz I can't taste anything. Oh, mummy you kind woman. My dad gets me hot, hot roti from the shop. Poppa! My driver gets me yummy chai from the kiosk guy, coz I love it. Nice guy. My husband cuddles me and gives me his strange one finger neck massage. Still, he's sweet. My other granny sways her way up the stairs with her arthritic legs to ask after me. Even my freakin' dog sits in my lap looking at me in an indecipherable way. News spreads. My in-laws call and ask me to have pepper milk. My cousin messages me on Facebook. Before I knew it, I got a text from an unknown number asking me breathe some steam. Come on, there's humour every step of this domino way. I was laughing by the time I got my trademarked index finger massage.
1. Enter the dragon...oh, I mean maid: Sure, it's a downright luxury. Surprisingly, the luxury quickly stops being luxury and becomes an everyday, multiple type injury. The marble flooring in our house has seen so many hands mop it, that if it were animate it'd burst into giggles when the new maid walked in. First, the maids never come on time, which results in my mother's blood pressure shooting through our three storeyed house. Then they rarely ever stick to their routine, that makes my dad's french moustache twitch like a drop of water on a hotplate. They almost always do a shoddy job of one thing or another, and let's not even get into their forgetfulness. I've seen my mom go through phases of forgiveness, understanding, discounting, discrediting, degrading, denouncing, anger, feeling wronged, guilt every week. After a few days of observation, I asked my maid today, 'How long shall we play this game of me putting that cardboard box near the trashcan and you putting it back on my bed?' Tomorrow, I wanna ask her the recipe for her world's thickest, yet brittlest rotis.
2. Rewind & repeat: I have a cold today. Also, I bit my tongue. Translation? Every time I talk, it hurts. I took my carpenter to a store to show the bed we want. We discussed it on the way back home. Then I discussed the same topic plus additional ones pertaining to bed with my dad. Shall we have polished wood or white wood? Shall we raise it one foot above the ground or half foot? Shall we have hooks for the curtains? Then my mom arrives, so I repeat what we discussed so far. The discussion now goes four ways. Soon, my husband arrives. He, obviously, needs all the details from the start. I drew the line when my grandmother wanted in on this. When my throats okay, she can join in our topic for the day.
3. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle my brains away: Got bell, will ring. I work upstairs. That is 23 steps away from the main door. Sure, it doesn't sound like much and you must think I'm one rich little lazy bum. How about going up and down these stairs 5 times every half hour? Exercise, right? Who doesn't need it nowadays. Now how about if you're right in the middle of drafting that tough paper and five different saleswomen wanna sell you sanitary napkins when you use tampons? How did I rustle through the angry jungle that was my mind when the bell rang the sixth time to find a shred of humour? I asked the girl to come inside, I brought her a tampon and described how to use it and why it makes better sense. She smiled awkwardly, muttered some god's name, and said she's still not married (i.e., she's a virgin).
4. Princess and the pea: Remember the story about how a king tested a strange woman who came knocking on his door claiming she was a princess? He put a pea underneath some twenty mattresses and said that a true princess would not be able to sleep coz it would be oh-so-uncomfortable for her gentler-than-a-rose petal body. (Well, that's the story I was told.) Cut to the usual mattress you'll find over here. I've only heard of stories about kids bouncing on their beds. In only movies did I see people crash onto a bed and not wince in pain. Guess we misunderstood that fairytale! But my husband and I've now got our own twist to the tale. We have an ultra expensive mattress that was designed in the UK and stuffed in India. On top of my hard mattress.
5. iCare: Told you, right? I've got a cold. So my uncle asks after me. How sweet! My granny sends rasam (hot tomato soup thing). Awww! My mom makes special, spicy curry coz I can't taste anything. Oh, mummy you kind woman. My dad gets me hot, hot roti from the shop. Poppa! My driver gets me yummy chai from the kiosk guy, coz I love it. Nice guy. My husband cuddles me and gives me his strange one finger neck massage. Still, he's sweet. My other granny sways her way up the stairs with her arthritic legs to ask after me. Even my freakin' dog sits in my lap looking at me in an indecipherable way. News spreads. My in-laws call and ask me to have pepper milk. My cousin messages me on Facebook. Before I knew it, I got a text from an unknown number asking me breathe some steam. Come on, there's humour every step of this domino way. I was laughing by the time I got my trademarked index finger massage.
