Dethroning the Simpsons: The tale of my family and Curd with Vermicelli!

“Kanna*, your sisters sang and danced and your cousin even tried an Eminem impersonation, what about you? Surely you have some talent you can display on for us?”

Life isn’t about the good days and the bad days, it isn’t even about the truly exceptional ones, it is about those questions which blind side you for their sheer randomness at a dinner table conversation. At the age of 22 you don’t honestly expect yourself to be chided on to perform for relatives but for some odd reason most of my cousins were subjected to this question as the “older generation” wanted to have a glimpse into our lives this Sunday (yes this post is also a reminder of how wonderful my weekends are without you know what). So in between following superstitions to encourage MSD’s men in Blue to bowl better, field better and win, I avoided the above mentioned question only because as you know by now that scribbling here seems to be my only “talent” and with a follower-ship of (well let us not get there), it isn’t much.

The family dinner on most ordinary Sundays, apart from you include Mom and Dad. And if in case your family is not following the Chinese One Child Policy, a brother/sister. But on the rare occasion that people decide to connect with their long lost siblings and the extended family you have a kaleidoscope of 3 generations, 15 people, 4 different classically trained singers, dancers and musicians, one untalented self and a whole lot of Tayir Saddam (or as I discovered curd with vermicelli) thrown in.

The Vindhya mountain range truly divides this country in far more ways than I can imagine. Dinners with family are as Un-North Indian as they can be because in a,

North Indian family meet: Raj meets Uncle Singh. “Beta why is there nothing in your hand take a glass. What about your Madrasi friend? He doesn’t drink beer? Koi nahi puttar koi nahi, No worries let him have some water thodi si whiskey mila ke.”

My family meet: Kanna what are you doing? This is a question which breaks all barriers of time and place. Because it also implies, “What were you doing earlier? What do you intend to do? And where exactly is your life headed 50 years from now? Have you not thought about it? As you can imagine there isn’t a good answer to this one. You must remember that no matter how much you work or ever study there is always an Uncle or a cousin who has been there, done that and kicked some ass (sorry such words are not to be uttered) way better than you ever will.

North Indian family meet: Bebeji pairi ponna (touching the elder’s feet). “Jug jug jiyo mere laal,” says the aunt and neatly whisks away a 1000 rupee note and places it in my friend’s hands, this alone is reason enough to migrate up North but if you want more-

My family meet: We are expected out of our own will of course to do a shastang namaskar*** to our elders without any monetary blessings.

But then after 5 world cup matches even Munaf Patel shows enthusiasm and takes a catch and affects a run out. So you realize that you shouldn’t be so stubborn. You take part in the festivities, you let your aunts indulge in the cheek pulling and all the future life planning because you realize that for better or worse your blood will always be thicker than water and that what happens in the family stays in the family (or within this blog). And to add the cherry to the cake the Indian cricket team wins the match and even Navjot Singh Sidhu’s usage of a metaphor involving a midget, a toilet and some feline on a hot tin roof will form a weirdly bewildering and somewhat happy memory.

Also in a break from anti-nepotism here is my 1st, 2nd no I think 3rd cousin’s low down on the family dinner menu:
http://watermelonwedges.blogspot.com/2011/03/lesson-learnt.html

Appendix 1:

*Kanna: A peculiar term for expressing fondness for your nephews and nieces, sometimes replaced by Krishna, Kutty and a million other names inspired by the Gods themselves.



**shastang namaskar: Lying on the floor completely and bowing down asking for blessings or an excercise to make you realize that you are too fat, too old and over the hill to bend down, drop on all fours and crawl.