Mummy 1 and Papa 1 versus Mummy 2 and Papa 2

So for sometime now, Monu and Rahul have begun referring to each other's parents as Mummy and Papa. So now they have two Mummys and two Papas. When we were in school, if we had two children with the same first name, the said children would be numbered to help simplify the life of the teacher and to complicate the life of the numbered children. I remember in my class, we had a Prerna Sharma 1 and a Prerna Sharma 2, who sometimes fought over certificates, since it could be either's.

So in the case of Monu and Rahul too, with them having two Mummy's and two Papa's each, I have numbered the parents for the sake of convenience. It is simple. The biological folks are numbered 1 and the spouse's folks are numbered 2.

Today is Monu's birthday. The Western habit of midnight-celebrations and phone calls has firmly planted its tentacles in India but the backward folks of the Kakkar family, who are now known as Mummy 1 (Monu's mom a.k.a Chachi) and Papa 1 (Monu's dad a.k.a Chacha) are yet to catch up to this trend. I have mentioned in an earlier post that Papa 1 is known to throw his kids out of home at 10 p.m. when the kids have to board the 11:55 p.m. train because Papa 1 finds it difficult to stay up after 9 p.m. by when he has had a couple. Mummy 1, on the other hand does not imbibe but does wake up at ungodly hours and therefore cannot stay up even moderately late at night either.

Now Mummy 2 and Papa 2 are very cool people. They wake up late, they go to malls in Delhi and they eat an insane amount of non-vegetarian food for people who are Sharma's (Brahmins). We love them. The fact that they wake up late also implies that they sleep late so in our eyes, they are awesomely cool.

Parents often take advantage of the fact that they are the only set their children have. So when we saw that Monu now has an additional set, we tried to take full advantage of this fact by saying "Monu के दूसरे Mummy and Papa तो कब का मान जाते". This has not worked too well in our advantage because Mummy 1 does not care and Papa 1 really could not care any less.

However, I was delighted to see Papa 1 and Mummy 1 squirming a little today when we announced that Mummy 2 and Papa 2 had actually stayed up until midnight to wish Monu bang at 12 a.m. "How wonderful" "How thoughtful" "What considerate people" and so forth we exclaimed, while Mummy 1 shifted uneasily and said she DID stay up till fifteen minutes to 12 and wished Monu so it does count and Papa 1, after staring at each of us in a failed attempt to subdue us with a stern gaze, began staring at the ceiling like he had just spotted the map to a secret Dairy-Land there.

Yes, there is no point to this post. Is there ever, I ask you before I say goodnight?



Now, goodnight.