Shivam Diaries

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  • Musing on hugging

     

    After millions of lives were washed off in the deluge of Mahabaratham war, Dharmaputra and his brothers went to Dritharashtra seeking  his blessings.  Burning with anger at his brother’s sons, the blind king, after hugging the eldest Pandava invited the next one Bhima for hugging. Lord Krishna, cleverly pushed Bhima aside and in his place placed a steel statue. The blind king,  hugged using all his strength intending to smash Bheema, the killer of his hundred sons. The steel statue tumbled in bits and pieces. Lord Krishna again saved a Pandava.

    So hugging was not unknown to our culture. Lord Krishna hugged SudAma, his childhood friend, who came all the way by walk to meet the Dwarakaadeesh. Lord Rama hugged Hanuman, when he brought the glad news of locating Ma Seetha.

    In USA, hugging is very common. While entering the house, hugging, while leaving too. When I see huge figures of ladies in the Gym, I move aside to ensure that I don’t come across any known faces and inadvertently get crushed, as I’m anxious to get back to India in one piece.

    When  I returned to Hyderabad, last time,  after staying in USA for over three years, my neighbor Ammini came to meet me with two pieces of mirchi bajji, one for me and one for my  junior Viswanath Iyer. I hugged her purely out of the inherited habit and out of love for the pieces of mirchi bajji, she had brought with her, as a welcome gift. Unused to the hugging formality , she screamed and her husband came running and asked  for a Karthi, knife to cut of my throat. My brother Vicha could’t hear her screaming but grabbed the word ‘kathi’ and  thought that Nair was asking the knife for slicing the jackfruit which was lying in a corner.

    ‘Kathiyo, koduvaala?,’ he asked in all seriousness. 

    Kathi is small knife which we use to cut vegetables and Koduval is the big one used to break hard coconuts.

    Suspecting that my brother would have lent  to someone the axe, we had in our house for  cutting firewood, I screamed at him, ‘namma mazhu enkedaa tholatchai- you lost our axe?’

    I was more worried about the probable loss of the axe than the threat of Nair to slice my throat.

    My brother heard ‘mazhu’, as ‘puzhu’ or worm. He retorted: 

    ‘Puzhuvum illai poochiyum illai. – there is no worm or insect in our house. I have been maintaining so well. Don’t yell unnecessarily ‘

    ‘What an obedient brother;’ Nair praised my bother. ‘I feel hugging him’

    ‘No bug too, Nair’. Junior Perinkulam clarified. 

    I won’t blame him. Between hug and bug, there is only one letter different

  • Ammalu is always right

    ‘Ammalu, I won’t demand that you take appointment to meet me, but it would be nice if you could knock my door and enter’

    ‘Do you knock the door of my heart every time you enter?’

    ‘Oh,Oh,  my beloved wife, what a poetic response! I surrender totally before you.  How can I serve you for all the love and affection you shower on me? Waiting for your order’

    ‘Go to bed now and knock my door tomorrow morning for coffee’

    ——————————————

    ‘Ammalu, I’m a thousand watts lamp. How can I tolerate utter darkness right in front of me?’

    ‘Verify your wattage, please. I can’t be  ‘utter’ darkness! I have a serious doubt thar the first digit of your wattage, would have melted away, when I came near you’ 

    ————————————-

    ‘Everyone has some problems or other. For a friend, his heart, for another kidney, for me, my wife, I didn’t say this Ammalu, a friend said so’

    ‘Whether you said that or your friend said, I’m not bothered.

    As far as I’m concerned I  don’t have any problems though I have the most problematic husband in the world’

     

  • Question of position

    Ammalu, husband is always husband and his position is on the top. Wife is always wife and her position is always under’

    ‘SP, I’m struggling to maintain my position on my own legs and you are bargaining for your position on the top!’

    ——————————

    Ammalu, are you my face or my heart? As you talk non stop, I will say, you’re my heart’

    ‘I will say I’m your face as you see every friend of mine as your friend’ 

  • Fathers Day musing

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    He taught me life. An ideal teacher, who made his own life or mansion, from a scratch.

    Of all his practical lessons, the most important one I learned  was the affection and respect he gave to his mother, who was in her late 80s when I saw her, as a child. After closing his shop at around nine at night and finishing his bath and worship,  before going for his dinner, he used to spend some time with his mother, first making sure that her bed was comfortable, she had her food in time, her warm water flask was close by and other little, little comforts, which my mother would have already provided. He used to give her a short summary of what went on in the shop, from morning to evening, including presenting an abridged income and expenditure statement, for which there was no need and it was purely to give a feeling to the mother, that her son gave  her so much importance. 

    Now, when when my sons spend a few minutes with me before going to bed, after a hectic day schedule, or when my daughter in laws and daughter treat me as if their prime duty is to take care of me  and not their children, I gratefully remember that tall man, with a wide chest, whom I called Appa, who left home in his very early days to earn and take care of his mother. He was her only support, having lost her husband and also a son.

    He was semi educated but he ensured that his children were educated but for which our children won’t be what they are today. 

    His common sense, will power, amazing conversation skill and witty talk and above all his gambheeryam and personal charm, none of his children could acquire. But, to face difficulties with calm, we have an inherited ability. 

  • Screaming, not t talking

    ‘Ammalu when you talk to people who matters, observe some manners’

    ‘People who matters, males or females?’

    ‘Males’

    ‘I don’t talk to any males’

    ‘You do talk to me’

    ‘I don’t. I only scream at you when your talk becomes a prolonged labour pain without getting pregnant’

  • Habit

    ‘Ammalu, don’t you think that old age is too late to correct a bad habit, developed since one’s young days? You may perhaps like to know who that gentleman is?’ 

    ‘No, Not at all. I’m not interested in knowing him. I want to know who is that idiotic woman, who didn’t nip her husband’s bad habit on the very first day they met’.

    ‘But, you couldn’t correct my bad habit’

    ‘Yours is a habit. Who can correct that? Can I change the shape of your nose or shade of your skin?’

  • Signing off

    ‘Ammalu, I’m signing off from our relationship’

    ‘What does it mean ?’

    ‘I’m going away from you’

    ‘’Why your signature for that? . Come back soon. I’m making 

    oninon pakoda for evening tea’

    ‘No, Not going’

    ‘Onion pakoda is more valuable than your signature! That is why I’m taking charge of your bank cheque books. Pl. sign in this letter to the bank’

    ‘Ammalu, signing off is different from signing. You don’t know’

    ‘I do know. That was why I gave you ‘off’ and  ‘sign’ I take’

  • A question of smartness

    ‘With due  respects to your mother, I don’t hesitate to make a comment: she would have given birth to a smarter girl’

    ‘SP, she wanted to. But, I objected. I told her, ‘mom, I want to marry only a man of average intelligence. Don’t give birth to a smarter girl’.  

    She agreed. I love my mom’

  • Age for humming love songs

    ‘Time is not in my favor. Nor age, wife or children. Only thing in my favor is sleep’

    ‘Sleep well’

    ‘Even that, I can’t. Wife shares my bed’

    ‘You said, she is not in your favor’

    ‘She is not. That is why she doesn’t sleep in her room’

    ‘Bed bugs there in her room?’

    ‘No. I have a habit of humming love songs in sleep. She enjoys hearing  it’

    ‘At 80 plus, if you are humming love songs in sleep, even gods and angels are in your favor’

  • Sight problem

    ‘Ammalu, see this  ad. A woman of 50 plus is seeking a long term relationship with men of 60 plus. What does ‘long term relationship’ means?’

    ‘I will try to explain. Take you as an example. You can see me clearly when I’m close to you. When I enter from outside you assume that I am Paru, Parukutty or any other friend but not me. She is looking for a man who can identify her from a distance too’

    ‘But, Why she used the word ‘relationship’ ? She could have, instead,  said, ‘looking for a husband’?’

    ‘She might be already having a husband like you, with the sight problem’