I was sashaying in from the Sweatshop yesterday when it happened.
A high-pitched voice yelling "ant-ee, ant-ee", stopped me in my tracks.
And then I spotted the Bug. It was my 35 plus something neighbour beckoning me with a smile..
Ant-ee? Oh Aunty...
Yikes, did I hear right?
Did she really call me Aunty? Oh heck!!!!
Pushing 30?
Okay girl, the game has just begun..
The odd kid sprouting downy hair on his upper lip, shuffles his feet and mumbles: "OK aunty" to something you said.
"Hey kid what was that you said??..Aunty??? Who me???"
Maybe the kid is short sighted in addition to being challenged in the intelligence department...you think..
But then, it happens again...you cringe..and again... you cringe some more
Could it be that single strand of grey just behind my ear that is doing it??? Could it be???Could it?? Have I got there? Already??
Hit 40? The rules change..
The frequency of the bite varies depending on factors such as the quantum of excess adipose tissue on your person, the size of Spouse's paunch, the facial hair on your adolescent's face and mostly, how much of a push-over are you? Will you take it lying down? And in quiet embarrassment?
Fifty may be the new 30 in Madonna-land, but if Madonna was Indian, she would be Madonna Aunty to many of us.
Would she gyrate and strut her stuff with gay abandon, flex her muscles or tongue-lock with a Britney Spears if hordes of teenagers went to her rock concert and thumped their feet and chanted in unison: Aunty-Aunty-Aunty-Aunty???
She would feel like a butterfly on a dissection board. Pained...pinned down and ...
Labelled...
In the Madras of yore, in my growing up years, the rules were simple: mother's friends were aunty, father's friends were uncle....
But in the Chennai of today, we do tend to take this respect thing a bit too far......we all have a name..often beautiful ones which our parents scoured the length and breadth of their world to find..how about using that for God's sake...or if making a show of respect is your thing, then preface it with a Mrs or a Ms....
I would even settle for Madam...that it makes me feel like the Mistress of a Bordello keeping close tabs on her brood of perky young hookers is quite another matter...
Cheers!!!!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
It's a family thing
Strange thing about families...
We were driving home from a wedding reception the other night..with us was Old Relative..all of us enclosed inside the car...no escape routes visible..
Now, I rate traveling in a closed space with relatives, right up up there, a close second behind waking up to find myself buried alive in a crypt.
Anyway, we were not long into this claustrophobic ride into the night, when Old Relative turns to me and says: Why are you vegetarian? Is it because you are FAT?.....
Dead silence....
Old Relative is older than my birth mother...husband's much older sibling..
I expect gracious polite Madras charm...instead I get crass, rude, not to mention crude and cruel Chennai behavior..
I do have some excess adipose tissue on my person...Okay, several excess kilos...but still....
Spouse looks silently out of the blackened window at non existent scenery, it makes JFK, the driver, miss the speed breaker and land on a pot-hole....
That should pass......
But it doesn't..
"Then WHY??... Tell me, tell me.....," he persists...Much like the Tamil comedian Vadivelu saying "C'mon.. Talk me, talk me.." in that movie clip that Winner and I so love to watch..
I mull over this and wonder...now how do I field this one? Should I turn this into a general question as in "Are vegetarians slim?"......"
Anyway, why are relatives so obnoxious to their own families? Should they strut out their very worst to those bound to them by ties of blood?
Several instances come to mind...
Times when we have gone to eat out...times when I have had someone turn to me and say, "the food was awful today.." With deep emphasis on AWFUL.......I did not cook the food, I only helped pay the bill...even then....
How about some grace here? Some sensitivity? ...Am I expecting too much? Do we reserve the best for those who are not family? Is family supposed to lump everything? Is this an Indian thing?....
If it is, then it is another one we need to change real soon...
We were driving home from a wedding reception the other night..with us was Old Relative..all of us enclosed inside the car...no escape routes visible..
Now, I rate traveling in a closed space with relatives, right up up there, a close second behind waking up to find myself buried alive in a crypt.
Anyway, we were not long into this claustrophobic ride into the night, when Old Relative turns to me and says: Why are you vegetarian? Is it because you are FAT?.....
Dead silence....
Old Relative is older than my birth mother...husband's much older sibling..
I expect gracious polite Madras charm...instead I get crass, rude, not to mention crude and cruel Chennai behavior..
I do have some excess adipose tissue on my person...Okay, several excess kilos...but still....
Spouse looks silently out of the blackened window at non existent scenery, it makes JFK, the driver, miss the speed breaker and land on a pot-hole....
That should pass......
But it doesn't..
"Then WHY??... Tell me, tell me.....," he persists...Much like the Tamil comedian Vadivelu saying "C'mon.. Talk me, talk me.." in that movie clip that Winner and I so love to watch..
I mull over this and wonder...now how do I field this one? Should I turn this into a general question as in "Are vegetarians slim?"......"
Anyway, why are relatives so obnoxious to their own families? Should they strut out their very worst to those bound to them by ties of blood?
Several instances come to mind...
Times when we have gone to eat out...times when I have had someone turn to me and say, "the food was awful today.." With deep emphasis on AWFUL.......I did not cook the food, I only helped pay the bill...even then....
How about some grace here? Some sensitivity? ...Am I expecting too much? Do we reserve the best for those who are not family? Is family supposed to lump everything? Is this an Indian thing?....
If it is, then it is another one we need to change real soon...
Saturday, August 23, 2008
A new frontier
The young ones in my life have inspired me to blog. In particular, I have to thank Champagne Supernova who shares my work space for introducing me to the possibilities that this medium holds....I am just a Madras girl...Madras not Chennai. Madras stands for gracious, laid back, relaxed enjoyment of life. Chennai, on the other hand is all hustle and bustle...I do not know these people who call themselves Chennai vaasis...grabby, money making machines..spewing negative vibrations into the atmosphere...But enough already...I have now started recording this journey of life...who knows what this will bring...ouch!!!..therein lies the rub....
