Imagine

While digging her purse for the house-key she observed that "Home Sweet Home" mat faced towards the door.

She tried opening the lock. Her trembling hands weren't helping much.

10 minutes from then, she was half lying on her bed, legs still on the ground.

She watched the ceiling fan running at the highest speed, that did not stop her sweating

 

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"Om Sai Ram", the door bell put all my thoughts to an end. Who could it be at this time? I thought.

If its Vikram then thankfully I made home just in time.

 

"Yenamma are you not well?", asked Jalamma, neighboring aunty. Jalamma was 65yrs old, a widow who stayed alone in her house. One of her sons according to her died while serving the country in the military & the other left home 10 years back & never returned. She was healthy, but her loneliness was killing her.

 

"Im OK aunty, its just that the climate has changed all of a sudden. Would you like to have some coffee", I invited her in.

 

Aunty was the one who usually looked after our house when werent home. Not sure how a 65yr old lady could look after a house,

I mean with the kind of crimes we see on TV, she could hardly safe herself from such notorious people.

 

"No coffee ma, sit I want to talk with you. Who else do I have other than you to chat?"

 

"Yes tell me aunty how have you been?"

 

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She still loves me. Yes, she must really love me. I could see in her eyes, somewhere far away, he was happy

Else why would she risk her "Present" & come to meet me all the way till here.

Agreed things didn't work well, but its never late. What if she wants me to be with her even now?

If that is the case my life is going to change so much, Jitesh was smiling.

 

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"Who is that boy" asked Vikram

 

"Which boy?"

 

"That boy who is with Jalamma. He looks very young to be her son"

 

"Jalamma adopted that boy. She is certain now that her son is not coming back & wanted me to help her with adoption. Our NGO helped her, & guess what, she is one happy woman now"

 

"Hello", Vikram yelled, "What is your name boy?"

 

"Jitesh", said the 10yr old boy.

 

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& with that she made sure that her darkest secret, "Jitesh" was hidden from rest of the world.

 

 

Gowda household: Have a name or it’s not yours

I remember granny taking me to small stainless steel selling shops that hung huge sieves outside. Initially I assumed they were badminton rackets of some kind. Granny liked utensils; she bought so many of them, I never saw her buying clothes. According to her, clothes could tear off or fade or lose color but utensils are there to stay. She sometimes traded old stuff (in kgs) to buy utensils.

I wonder how her daughter (my mother) never learnt lessons. Ma buys so many saris that these days she uses my wardrobe too. Pati gets confused that when I already have so many saris why do I still complain? Then I let him know that the smallest possible chunk of saris is mine & biggest heap is mom’s. He still puts an extra namaskara to lord that I am not like my mom.

Oops coming back to granny & her utensils, when mom got married, she hardly purchased any utensils, everything her mommy & my granny had already got. Every utensil had names written on it, with electronic metal pen. Either it had my name “Kavyashree” (not sure where this shree came up) or my maama’s name i.e. mom’s brother. Granny had two favorite people, one being her son & next me, her grand daughter.

Fights between me & sister usually took drastic ways of me snatching dining plate from her claiming it had my name & hence she cannot use them. Sometimes I even threw her lotas so that they have dents only because they had her name. She just used to shout, wasn’t physically able to take care of me, you can imagine that even in terms of gaalis I outran her, all she did was shout until mom came & threatened to kill me.

Coming back to granny “steel shop visits”, they would happen every time there was a wedding of close aides. She would usually buy a “chombu” or “pair of lotas”, if they were very close to us “2 plates” perhaps. If they formed immediate family they used to be presented with steel filters. Every item had to be marked with name “Indha - Basavegowda & family”, it used to get wrapped in pink & cream stripes wrapping paper (like phatapati chaddi format), stapled at the end & rightfully presented at the wedding to the bride or groom whoever invited us.

What an awesome way of Inventory management (as one twistedlogix said). Some say its because, any girl who comes married to a house should not proclaim that the utensils were got from her house to the in-laws. Few say when the paalu or property was divided yet families stayed together for obvious reasons, things were named so that none would get mixed up. Not sure what exactly is the fuss all about, but at the Gowda household, how important it is to have mudhe-upsaaru it is that very important to have utensils named. Have a name or it’s not yours

Anyways these days I keep over acting on my “independent” skills, which is bullshit as it is Pati who does “drop to office & pick up from office” since 1000 days (that’s right we have been married for that long & yes I am counting days). I refused to bulge on it until yesterday while I was having breakfast & the spoon had “Pati’s” name. See talk about independent life & even a spoon I use has his name.

WTH, I threw the spoon.