The anonymous, in-the-shadows heroine

If asked why this blog has not been updated in so long you would think I have been sleeping wouldn't you? Well you wouldn't be entirely off the mark. BUT unbeknownst to you, reader, in the cover of Internet anonymity and in the secure distance between phone calls from Dehradun to Mumbai (where our not-so-evil villain-sibling Ram resides), I have been waging a lone battle. While the country sleeps at peace at night, I am also usually sleeping and when the country is awake and vigilant, I am mostly still sleeping. However in between, I have been fighting to protect our fundamental freedom of expression and the more important, fundamental Punjabi constitutional right- the RIGHT TO GOSSIP.

After Monu’s wedding, it seemed that there would be no posts to share until the next wedding is fixed. But at our age we are living in, as Jason Mraz says “an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea” and the diarrhea is marriage. So we are surrounded constantly by questions like ‘की सोच्या तूं’ (highlighting yet again that marriage is the only thing one should be thinking about), ‘हुण settle हो जाना चाहिदा ऐ, right age ने’ and so forth. Now plenty has been afoot since the last post and this time, it concerns our two brothers, Sushil and Ram.

Why, you will wonder did I not post anything on this blog about these developments earlier? I will tell you why.

The thing is good folks, not only is Punjabi gossiping all-pervasive and omnipotent, it is also highly complex. The two figures below will explain the vast complexities underlying and overlying Punjabi gossip:

Figure one shows the entire gamut of gossip there is about, say Ram’s roka. So when did the roka happen, when was it decided when the roka will happen, when was it decided that it will be decided when the roka happens, who decided that the roka will happen, who decided when the roka will happen, who decided who will decide when the roka happens... you get the drift, right? Now from all of this gossip, there is some part that one Buaji will deem appropriate to be shared. Maa will have another part of the entire gossip appropriate to be shared and Chacha will have yet another part.

There is also the concept of receiver-appropriate gossip (see Figure 2) so Buaji might select some bits from her total gossip deemed appropriate to be shared to be relayed to one person while she may choose to provide her entire portion of gossip deemed appropriate to be shared to another person. The same thing is followed by all other family members and the entire situation is made even more complex (you did not think that was possible, right?) by the fact that the family members often have overlapping receivers of information. So if the entire information is alphabets A-Z, Chacha will tell PQR to मनोहरलाल वीरजी while Buaji will tell ABCDMNOPQR to मनोहरलाल वीरजी and then Chacha will crib that Buaji told more to मनोहरलाल वीरजी and मनोहरलाल वीरजी will call Maa and Badi Mummy and Buaji and Chacha and Chachi and do some fin Punjabi गिल्ला about how “सान्नू ते कोई कुछ दसदा वि नहीं है”.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because this is exactly the reason, mine good folks why I withdrew into the proverbial shell and refused to update this very fine specimen of a blog. Sushil believes in free speech so he is cool with anything written here. But older family folks have come to consider this blog as a bit of a pain in the ass. Ram is a bit of a private domain/public domain person who compartmentalizes information worthy of sharing like the freakiest obsession. Plus I am scared of him.

See I am woefully indiscriminate in sharing information; the proverbial open book. I will, for example, at the slightest provocation of how my ‘भाभी ’ (Ram’s fiancée who by the way retches at the word 'भाभी') is, share details of her hairstyle and her apartment and the fact that she has a nice tattoo on her ankle that is Japanese for “bittersweet life”. See why this blog gets me in trouble so often?

Anyhue, I have been biding my time and fighting my secret battle to update the blog for several months now. In the process of my forced silence, I have acquired the habit of reciting blog posts to myself that I could not write, much to the concern of Sonu who until recently was sleeping in the same room as I do.

But all is good, my unsuspecting-and-blissfully-unaware-of-the-iron-gloves-clamped-on-my-fingers-for-so-long-so-that-I-cannot-type readers. Only this morning did I receive a gracious ‘you can write what you what on the blog’ call from Ram and Sushil was equally sporty about his wedding story.



Watch this space!

Because one cannot burp

One may think that by not getting entangled in the matrimonial web, one would be able to steer clear of awkward dinners and such meetings with unfamiliar folks of the spouse's family. One would soon realize that one has been terribly wrong to make this assumption.

Ever since the wretched siblings of mine have turned on me, switched sides and embraced the famed matrimonial bliss, I find myself in the midst of such dinners and parties, smiling ज़बरदस्ती as I desperately try to recall the name of the sibling's spouse's brother's wife's nephew. Not a happy place.

This is not in any way meant to be taken as a reflection on the respective families of the spouses of the siblings. They are all lovely people and I am always very happy to meet them (briefly). See, I find myself unable to relate to the societal norms that are followed during a dinner or time-out with people in general. Which is a way of saying I don't know what to say when there are a bunch of people sitting around a table (or standing randomly for that matter). Take the example of Sunil Uncle who is a relative of ours in some way and who owns a guest house in our area. Last year, he decided to throw a party on new year's eve at this guest house and he calls Chacha and says EVERYBODY must attend. Chacha says, of course and thinks nothing about it because there cannot be a Punjabi party where EVERYBODY is not invited to attend.

Now my New Year plans are always the same- wave the rest of the family goodbye and then prop myself down before the TV to watch movies while eating unhealthy food and attending calls from drunk friends. This time, it turns out Sunil Uncle was serious when he said EVERYBODY must attend. Chacha was feeling very proud as he walked into the party because I am told that my anti-social antics are bequeaths of my Dad and my Chacha and so HIS accepting an invitation without any drama is actually a feat. Chacha struts into the Guest House but finds Sunil Uncle blocking the entrance. "Where is Shweta?" he says and continues to block Chacha's entrance for a while. Let us cut the long story of how he harassed all of us about my absence short by stating that my potentially very (happily) solitary New Year's eve was marred by incessant phone calls from a drunken Sunil Uncle whose party, for some inexplicable reason was ruined because "साड्डे बच्चे सान्नू घास नि डालदे ने". Let me point out here that until very recently, Sunil Uncle did not know I existed.

But we digress.

The reasons that I avoid such formal settings begin from not being able to scratch or burp but do not end just there (For example, why can I not sit चौक्ढ़ी मार के without getting stern warning glances from my family members?). And when the 'people in general' is replaced with सम्धि family, the pressure to entertain and please is too much to bear.

So my happy plans about the added perks of not getting married, i.e. not having to deal with strangers who are suddenly your family all seemed to disappear like those Death Eaters in the Harry Potter movies do, as soon as my siblings began to get hitched. Life, good friends of mine is not easy. And life, good friends of mine is especially not easy when they don't let you wear a t-shirt and pair of shorts to a dinner. Because life, good friends of mine cannot be easy when you are squirming uncomfortably in fancy clothes and burping silently inside your own mouth.

The most unimaginable thing, however is that nobody seems to understand my very logical grumbling.

Becoming slightly incomplete

I have been mulling over this post and fighting in my head about whether I should write it or not. Then I decided that I wanted to. This blog had been started for family to connect through, and a death is as much part of a family's coming together as a celebration like a wedding is.

Sushil and Radha's dad; our Bade Papa passed away recently. It was the first time any of us had seen a death this close and felt its cruel swipe take away something so integral to our existence that we have been left staggering since then, trying to find our ground again.

The physical absence of Bade Papa is striking in the house. The simple, single-storey house in Dehradun with its simple little garden is the place we called home for sometime when my Dad and Chacha moved back from Ranchi to Dehradun in the beginning of the 90s. This is where we bonded as the family that we are today and it is here that we learnt the value of a life that is shared- with equal love and intensity- with parents, uncles, aunts, siblings and cousins. I will not pretend for one minute that living together has been all roses and butterflies; there was and continues to be constant strife and problems but it is nothing compared to the love, security and happiness we get in return.

The physical existence of a person is defined to a large extent by the essence and traits of the person. Bade Papa's presence is etched strongly in our house and will not fade away, I can say with complete confidence.

When we were in school, he would sit down every evening to sharpen our pencils and to rub our erasers clean against the rough surface of the back of a clipboard. We would return from school and eye him warily while eating our lunch because just as he saw we were about to finish, he would walk into the store room and bring out the blankets for our daily afternoon naps that we royally resisted to no avail.

A few years down the line, it was time for us to apply to colleges and that phase of our lives is linked intricately to us calling Bade Papa and asking him to get us innumerable drafts for innumerable applications that we sent off, every which where. Bade Papa worked at State Bank of India and he would get us our paperwork- applications for opening bank accounts, pin numbers for ATM cards, drafts that we would ask him to make and then forget about and so many other such things- at home for us to sign like a bunch of princes and princesses. For many years, none of us knew our accounts numbers or branch names and when there arose a situation that we needed these details, we would call him to find out!

Those years while he worked at the bank have similar stories that are a part of us. Bade Papa was an avid cards-player and his evenings after work were spent at the Doon Club with his "table"- a group of people who always played cards together at the same time and with the same "kitty" (pool). But never was he late in reaching home and by 7:00 p.m. he would be back home to spend the rest of the evening with family. Sunday morning and afternoons were entirely devoted to Badi Mummy and the rest of us. We went to the Dargah where we ate the bhandara and then onwards to the Doon Club for a round of Tambola and the snacks and cold drinks that made Sundays the best day of our childhood time. Even after us kids moved away from Dehradun or stopped going to these Sunday entertainments, Bade Papa and Badi Mummy continued to go, every week.

There are so many other things about him that are permanent and unfading. The fact that while he was working in the bank, he would never answer our calls on his mobile but instead, disconnect our calls and dial back from his office phone. The fact that he would use "cool slangs" like "yo" and "OK dude" without understanding what they meant and always accompanying them with a high-five. The fact that he spent his morning hours moving from one end of the house to the other, driving Badi Mummy mad, cleaning this and cleaning that and therefore never reaching the bank on time.
The place where he would sit with his brothers during the routine round of drinks every evening, the way he would call his wife "Veenu", the way he would smilingly look down, nod his head and say "अच्छा" when somebody would pull his leg or the way he always said "खुश रहो, स्वस्थ रहो, चिरंजीव रहो" every time one of us greeted him. The last was true even when he was in the terminal stages of his cancer and could barely speak.

The death of one of your own takes away a part of you and maybe that is why it is so hard. They say 'memories make a man' and when somebody who is a big part of all your memories is suddenly taken away, it leaves within you a void that will never fade. I had heard earlier that time heals wounds but I realize that the death of a close one is a wound that cannot be healed. The void is here to stay and what the passage of time will do is teach us to live with this void.

Less than a week after Bade Papa's death, we are already beginning to smile and laugh and joke with each-other. The family members are slowly returning to their respective towns and cities and life is resuming to the same routines and same pace.

Only now, we are living it as slightly incomplete people who have lost a part of themselves in losing a father.