Saas, Bahu and Machchar!

The wind is rustling violently through the trees, the heavens lightening up repeatedly accompanied every time by a very familiar sounding thunder. A distant, incessant ringing of a bell fills the air already leaden with gloom. Half-eaten chapattis and sabzi watch idly from the sidelines, as the family is huddled closely together, rapt in attention. I take a look at the clock and yawn, rather helplessly. 10 more minutes!

Sitting in a remote town, in one of the more underdeveloped parts of the world, I bring you the single-most unifying thread in the history of India – The Great Indian Joint Family Saga. The saga that plays itself in every abode – from a shack in a village to a duplex in posh city locale, enveloping us all in their world, making their woes and joys ours and our money and time, theirs .

Ekta kapoor has unknowingly stumbled upon an untouched nerve of Indian household. Even though the only joint families remaining in India are found on primetime, their day-to-day struggles with surprisingly dedicated vamps and terminal diseases have really touched a chord with women all over India. And it really warms my heart when I see an executive and his driver, both bitching about their wives’ fixation with Tulsi, Parvati and Mihir, as it goes on to show how saas-bahu soaps have formed a bridge across castes, religion and class barriers and even nations. My father, on a recent visit to China, watched Kyunki… dubbed in Mandarin. Though I don’t know even an iota of Chinese, it would be so cool to watch Baa squeaking, in a high-pitched voice - "Tulsi zong shì fú cóng le zhè ge fáng zi guī zé"(“Tulsi ne humesha iss ghar ki maryaada ka paalan kiya hai”)

When the place I am currently located at, Khatima, Uttarakhand, was elevated to a sub-district or something like that, one of the first demands on the citizen charter was to ensure uninterrupted power supply during 8-11 P.M (any guesses why). Moreover, when Mihir passed away in an accident (the first time), the women of the colony held a funeral to mourn his death. I reckon, when you are riding the simplest of vehicles, even a slight bump can unsettle your bum.

Talking of bumps, quite a few have shown up on my arms and face. Come dusk and the country-side air, supposed to be good for health, is filled with a ubiquitous buzz of mosquitoes. They are so many in number that they have to take turns at having a go at you, while giving the All-Out a royal ignore. Here I came across a new contraption quite popular in Khatima to fight the mosquito menace - Battery-powered electric racquets. They deliver mild electric shocks, just about managing to knock out the mosquitoes for a solitary minute before they rise again to resume their pursuits, sometimes with a hint of vengeance. So it is essential for us to create mosquito-shaped, often permanent, stains on the floor, in order to make a dent in their ranks. Hence, at night you can see the young children in every single house practicing the same maneuver - smash and step. The future of Indian Badminton has never looked so rosy.

"dàn shì wo réng rán shè fa huò dé yī xiē lè qù" (“But I am still managing to have some fun!!”)