Be a sport, Ammalu, instead of spending your life inside the house”
“You want me to play football or sneak into friends’ house and enjoy their quarrel, as you do?”
“The second one is a better option considering your age”
“Done. From now on, you are doing the cooking, mopping and washing the clothes”
“That is very unsportive of you, Ammalu”
“Then let us play foot ball”
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“Ammalu, quick. Hide under the cot. Pattamma is coming. I had told her that I packed you off to your mom’s house”
“Better, you hide. It is my mom, not Pattamma coming. I had told her I packed you off to your mom’s house”
“But I have neither a mom nor a house”
“That is why she is coming to verify. She says, even fifty years after being with you, I haven’t learned A,B,C,D of lying from you”
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“To atone for all my misbehavior, I have decided to worship you during the nine auspicious days and nights, placing you among the dolls for veneration. You need to get down only for making sweet foods to offer to gods, including you”
“Not a bad idea. I will step down once more- when I hear your opening the front door to sneak out and to follow you, with a sword in hand, borrowed from the neighboring goddess chasing you wherever you go”
“I’ll go to Mars!”
“Wherever you go, I said”
“I know Ammalu, you certainly belong to another planet, landed here only to trouble me”
“So, the worship plan?”
“Dropped. Women join hands to harass husbands and I won’t be surprised if you manage to borrow a sword”
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“All the copies of the first print of my book titled,’how to escape from the tyranny of women’, sold, Ammalu”
“Can you somehow get a few copies back?”
“For whom?”
“For your sisters’ husbands and other close relatives of your family. I’m sure they won’t spend money from their pocket and buy your books”
“My sisters !!!!! Ammalu, what nonsense are you talking?”
“Why, they are not women?”
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“Maintain your status as the wife of a prolific writer.
Talk to our maid and milkman only in English”
“Prolific? What is that?”
“Refer Amazon or Oxford”
“Who are they?”
“Ammalu, Oxford was the name of our maid Oyyaram before she joined us and Amazon is our milkman Aaseervaadam”
” Shall I ask them the meaning of the word, ‘prolific’, if you don’t know ?”
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“All the way, I had to come to marry you, spending money and your mom didn’t reimburse a pie toward train fare and tea expenses. Stingy woman!’
” I forgot to tell you. when she came here last time, she asked me to hand over this amount ”
“Three rupees, thirty pie? for thirty people, towards train ticket and travel expenses form Palakkad to Thiruvnanthapuram?”,
“Thirty people didn’t come to marry me. Only you came for that purpose”
‘My own expense was more than fifty rupees Ammalu”
“OK. produce the actual bill and collect the balance amount”
” Actual bill, after 50 years?”
“Demanding train fare and travel expenses, after fifty years ?”
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“What is the big intimate relationship between husband and wife? I don’t see anything”
“You see me standing before you despite your provocative statement? That answers your question”
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“As you asked, I told mom that you like me”
“What was her reply?”
“‘Too late but not too little from a man like SP'”
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