‘Ammalu, your mother is most welcome to stay here and have the pleasure of my company. After all she is your mother, a rich and respectable lady’.
‘She says that the present arrangement works well. In the evenings you call on her, enjoy her snacks and coffee and return with some cash collected from her kitchen dabbas. She adds, ‘ let him tack cash for buying pan, arecanut or whatever he wants to, on his way back home, but spare me from his lectures on electrical engineering’
‘Ammalu, I’m a busy man with many appointments and I can’t tell you, where all I go. You expect me to take your written permission before I leave the house and report to you in writing where I went and whom all I met? Sorry, impossible’
‘Not written, oral will do. Your hand writing is horrible!’
cartoon courtesy Ramki, Chennai
‘Ammalu, a food this? You call this a food?’
‘What happened, you don’t like it?’
‘Not at all. Ammalu, this is not a food for big people, like me. Fit for cattle’
‘I too won’t like it then. I don’t want to eat cattle food.
I’m going to Appaiyer hotel’
‘Are you mad, to waste money in hotel food?’
‘If I don’t like the home food, what else do I do? You don’t want me to eat cattle food!’
‘You have not even tasted the food you made. How do you say that you don’t like it it?’
‘Your like is my like; your dislike is my dislike . No need to taste’
‘Ammalu, I’m so proud of you. How can I reject the food made by your affectionate hands. It is not ordinary food. It is Amritham, nectar for me’
‘Thank you. Say ‘Devamritham- nectar of Gods’
‘But, I’m not a god’
‘You’re my God!’
‘Devamritham’
‘Say again. What food is this?’
‘Devamritham, Devamritham’
‘Thrice was too much. Once would have been enough’
Cartoon courtesy. My cousin Ramki of Chennai
‘Ammalu, why don’t you buy a new sari for you, this month?’
‘SP, I know your next question is going to be, ‘what did Ammini tell you about me?’. She said that you’re the most charming person she has ever met. Ok. Go to sleep peacefully’
‘So, you don’t need a sari?’
‘Why not? For giving you such an important message, I will buy two saris. Don’t worry. Go to sleep peacefully’
‘How to sleep, Ammalu? Two saris will cost minimum two thousand rupees’
‘I didn’t ask for sari. You offered!’
‘That was during a weak moment’
‘You can’t afford to be weak. You are my husband’
Cartoon courtesy. Ramki, my cousin.
‘Ammalu, did you close the letter I asked you to write to that idiot Nair, on my behalf, with ‘love and regards’?
‘Yes, i did. What is wrong in it ? That is the way you close your letters’
‘He replies that he loves you and want you to convey his regards to me ‘
‘What is wrong in that? I accept his love and convey his regards to you’
‘As a married woman, you should accept only my love’
‘You write to me saying that you love me. I shall accept it instantly’
‘Are you mad, old woman? You want me to write you a love letter?’
‘Not a love letter. Simply write, ‘I love you, Ammalu!’
‘I can’t do that. Neither my father nor my grand father did that’
‘But they loved their wives?’
‘Yes, they did’
‘How do you say that with authenticity?’
‘Ammalu, stop the nonsense . How was I born? Anyway, to please you, I say, I love you’
‘Ok put it in writing’
‘I won’t’
‘Will you ask me the next question, I asked?
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Good boy. Go to sleep ‘
‘Alone?’
‘No, take one more pillow from my bed’
Cartoon courtesy- my cousin Ramki, Chennai.
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