“We have the oldest children in the world. We don’t let them do shit, they can’t drive, they can’t smoke, they can’t vote, they can’t work; they can’t even fuck for god’s sake! And you wonder why your teenager is such an asshole.You watch on the news a 10 year old third world kid holding an AK-47, he’s got a death stare looking right into the camera, that kid isn’t out spray painting on a Saturday night, he’s go shit to do, he’s got a whole agenda.”
Says my favorite comedian; Doug Stanhope. This is something even I have always been baffled by, how much our parents love treating us like little kids long after our childhood (to their defense some of us do totally deserve the ass-licking from overprotective-melodramatic members of the family. “I’m a mama’s boy”. No, you’re a fucking 19 year old sissy scared of taking a 10 hour train ride by yourself).
Now don’t get me wrong, in spite of all the recent nuclear family craze(what with all the devranis and jethanis trying to slice each other’s necks off thanks to Star Plus, a subject matter that if explored by India’s finest Divorce Attorney Ekta Kapoor in a book titled,” How-to-fucking-slaughter-every-married-woman-you-hate” I bet my original Made-In-New Zealand Nirvana Unplugged DVD, would surely turn out to be the highest selling book translated in all the 18 languages and those gazillion dialects so each and every saas-bahu has access to the masterpiece) one of the few things I admire about our otherwise brain-dead and sometimes torture-like Indian family traditions and customs is the fact that people actually care about each other but it gets all too much when your mother goes crazy trying to mould you on the basis of what Baba Ramdev tells her every morning at 7 on Aastha Channel.
You're away from home and end up getting a call from your mother at 11:30 in the night to make sure you had dinner (yes mom, you know I can’t live without eating for more than 4 hours, and even if I did by chance what choice do I have at this ungodly hour anyway?) and if you’re wearing warm clothing(yes mom, it is freezing cold here what do you expect!).
One thing an Indian mother sure loves is making things awkward for her kids in front of guests. The worst part is being told to act all polite(and civilized)in front of those visitors that I know couldn’t care less about my existence(for the record, I feel like setting up my entire town on fire out of embarrassment when some random Uncle and Aunty-ji show up on a Sunday evening out of what I think is total boredom and monotony in their sad life and my mother, out of nowhere, asks me to touch their feet 15 minutes after i’ve greeted them with a disinterested namastey , an order which if disobeyed by me brings the same death stare that Stanhope was talking about to my mom's face).Not to be misunderstood by the way, with the feet diving I do with full enthusiasm and self-interest when a select few close relatives show up(they give you money every time they visit, don’t they? :D ).
The touching of feet is usually followed by the same robotic and rhetorical talk about my college life and plans for the future, followed by an equally embarrassing joke about how I used to run semi-naked with a lollipop in hand in their lawn when I was little, followed of course with the incredibly enlightening society talk with my parents that i’m made to forcibly sit through cause of what my mom thinks is another attempt to socialize me(the last guest visit ended up teaching me that Sharma aunty is having a harder time finding a suitable servant to mop her newly marbled Italian floor than she is finding a suitable son-in-law for her slut daughter).
Not to forget that our parents mix up care and protectiveness even with hypocrisy, at times. The funniest thing is when you see Indian parents trying to sound totally casual, understanding and open-minded while talking about sex education on TV and in newspapers but you know that soon as they find out about the French kiss their teenage daughter shared last evening with a guy whose t-shirt either read “Serial Kisser” or “If being sexy is a crime, arrest me” in the basement parking lot of a leaky roof multiplex after going to a Ranbir Kapoor movie, the girl is either getting her pink cellphone taken away, her broadband disconnected, getting grounded indefinitely, or probably getting her head sliced off if the above mentioned events took place somewhere near Gurgaon or Karnal.
Moreover, 22 year old girls always need to be dropped off to the bus stand 80 meter away from where she lives because the bus driver might face inconvenience trying to pick her up from the gate itself just like the van guy used to when she was attending junior high.
Also, you can eat away relentlessly to end up as the fattest piece of ass you know, but you meet your mother after a long gap and she won’t stop pointing out how you’ve become pale and weak, further reminding you to have more Milk and bananas, two things that I don’t think Indian kids can ever outgrow, from their mother’s perspective. Sometimes, your newest haircut is enough to drive her into depression (my mom is pissed off as I am typing this cause I somehow decided to discontinue looking like her “babu-beta” she used to send to primary school 13 years ago cause I somehow decided to trade the ridiculously Dabur Navrattan-ised childhood head of mine with the fucking disheveled beehive I’m sporting right now).
Anyway, the most outrageous moment, of course, occurred last night. My whole family happened to be together after over 4 months, my mom(who thinks i don’t eat well away from home, I won’t disagree actually) and elder sister(who is always suspicious of me and thinks that all I do in the hostel is drink beer and smoke weed all day long) kept bickering about how I never come to see them more often, never call them up unless it is for ATM money(which they think, I spend on calling up girls) and never eat well when away from home, I was already beginning to get annoyed and regretting coming home for 5 days when this happened at the dinner table;
Dad: Nice to see you’ve gained some weight son.
Mom: (With a sense of accomplishment)Yeah, it must be cause of the balanced diet routine chart I put in his bag pocket when he was leaving that he put up on his hostel wall and follows every day, not to mention the glass of milk he tells me he drinks every morning.
Sister: No look at that tummy ma! It is pure Butter Chicken that he cannot resist even on Tuesdays, along with loads of alcohol, along with god knows all the other stuff these engineering guys do in hostels!
Me: OMG the time to hang myself with horse semen is finally upon me. Kurt Cobain and Micheal Jackson, see you in hell soon!
You're away from home and end up getting a call from your mother at 11:30 in the night to make sure you had dinner (yes mom, you know I can’t live without eating for more than 4 hours, and even if I did by chance what choice do I have at this ungodly hour anyway?) and if you’re wearing warm clothing(yes mom, it is freezing cold here what do you expect!).
One thing an Indian mother sure loves is making things awkward for her kids in front of guests. The worst part is being told to act all polite(and civilized)in front of those visitors that I know couldn’t care less about my existence(for the record, I feel like setting up my entire town on fire out of embarrassment when some random Uncle and Aunty-ji show up on a Sunday evening out of what I think is total boredom and monotony in their sad life and my mother, out of nowhere, asks me to touch their feet 15 minutes after i’ve greeted them with a disinterested namastey , an order which if disobeyed by me brings the same death stare that Stanhope was talking about to my mom's face).Not to be misunderstood by the way, with the feet diving I do with full enthusiasm and self-interest when a select few close relatives show up(they give you money every time they visit, don’t they? :D ).
The touching of feet is usually followed by the same robotic and rhetorical talk about my college life and plans for the future, followed by an equally embarrassing joke about how I used to run semi-naked with a lollipop in hand in their lawn when I was little, followed of course with the incredibly enlightening society talk with my parents that i’m made to forcibly sit through cause of what my mom thinks is another attempt to socialize me(the last guest visit ended up teaching me that Sharma aunty is having a harder time finding a suitable servant to mop her newly marbled Italian floor than she is finding a suitable son-in-law for her slut daughter).
Not to forget that our parents mix up care and protectiveness even with hypocrisy, at times. The funniest thing is when you see Indian parents trying to sound totally casual, understanding and open-minded while talking about sex education on TV and in newspapers but you know that soon as they find out about the French kiss their teenage daughter shared last evening with a guy whose t-shirt either read “Serial Kisser” or “If being sexy is a crime, arrest me” in the basement parking lot of a leaky roof multiplex after going to a Ranbir Kapoor movie, the girl is either getting her pink cellphone taken away, her broadband disconnected, getting grounded indefinitely, or probably getting her head sliced off if the above mentioned events took place somewhere near Gurgaon or Karnal.
Moreover, 22 year old girls always need to be dropped off to the bus stand 80 meter away from where she lives because the bus driver might face inconvenience trying to pick her up from the gate itself just like the van guy used to when she was attending junior high.
Also, you can eat away relentlessly to end up as the fattest piece of ass you know, but you meet your mother after a long gap and she won’t stop pointing out how you’ve become pale and weak, further reminding you to have more Milk and bananas, two things that I don’t think Indian kids can ever outgrow, from their mother’s perspective. Sometimes, your newest haircut is enough to drive her into depression (my mom is pissed off as I am typing this cause I somehow decided to discontinue looking like her “babu-beta” she used to send to primary school 13 years ago cause I somehow decided to trade the ridiculously Dabur Navrattan-ised childhood head of mine with the fucking disheveled beehive I’m sporting right now).
Anyway, the most outrageous moment, of course, occurred last night. My whole family happened to be together after over 4 months, my mom(who thinks i don’t eat well away from home, I won’t disagree actually) and elder sister(who is always suspicious of me and thinks that all I do in the hostel is drink beer and smoke weed all day long) kept bickering about how I never come to see them more often, never call them up unless it is for ATM money(which they think, I spend on calling up girls) and never eat well when away from home, I was already beginning to get annoyed and regretting coming home for 5 days when this happened at the dinner table;
Dad: Nice to see you’ve gained some weight son.
Mom: (With a sense of accomplishment)Yeah, it must be cause of the balanced diet routine chart I put in his bag pocket when he was leaving that he put up on his hostel wall and follows every day, not to mention the glass of milk he tells me he drinks every morning.
Sister: No look at that tummy ma! It is pure Butter Chicken that he cannot resist even on Tuesdays, along with loads of alcohol, along with god knows all the other stuff these engineering guys do in hostels!
Me: OMG the time to hang myself with horse semen is finally upon me. Kurt Cobain and Micheal Jackson, see you in hell soon!
i read somewhere this morning that reading rotten studies about how youngsters of this generation are really horrid apparently 'lifts the spirits' of oldies. the tme to hang yourself with horse semen is indeed upon you my friend.
ReplyDeleteAlready on it! Where is the nearest stable?
ReplyDeletehaha.. good one again.
ReplyDeletethe karnal and gurgaon part is the most amazing.
go on.. keep writing.
Thanks man!
ReplyDeletenicely written maynnee..i like your comparisons ....tres funny
ReplyDeletenext blog????
*waits waits waits*
Thank you.Well yeah, watch out :D
ReplyDeleteJoin the club, my friend. My mom sends parcels full of food (roomies and wingies don't complain!) and I have to give her a detailed description about what I ate, what was there for food, the density of dal and the number of brown spots on the rotis. Guess all Indian moms are the same! :)
ReplyDeleteP.S. A little late to comment on this post, I know. But I couldn't resist!
DAMN! I didn't even recognize this post when I first got this notification, haha! Wrote this such a long time ago, how'd you discover it anyway? ;D
ReplyDeleteI was going through your archives. You write well. Wanted to read more of you. :)
ReplyDeleteYou should post more often. :D