"It is my turn."
A pair of gold bangled, manicured hands, with every perfectly shaped fingernail the colour of rubies, materialised at the drum-tap.
"What?"
We all scruffy, scrawny, country-rats looked up from our daily squabble at the drum-tap, all jostling, pushing and screaming frozen mid-scream, and mid-shove to view a picture of total, incredible contrast- a vision in orange and yellow chiffon saree,fumes of perfumes emanating from her peaches-and-cream skin, voluptuous lips painted bright red,perfect eyebrows framing pretty kohl-lined eyes, bent down, to wash her hands , in slow motion, as it were.
The shoving , pushing resumed the moment she left, but a lingering aroma of her mysterious perfume stayed on in the air.There was some swooning(fake), and raised eyebrows accompanied with hysterical giggles .
Suddenly, the mother appeared, looking very upset. We were informed that Munnidi was sobbing in the bedroom, and that we were to be blamed for the gross"miscarriage of justice".Someone(it was difficult to say who)touched her 'flower-petal hands'(exact words used by the fawning mother)with curd-besmirched hands. That too 'sour-curd'(here, our venerable aunt assumed a high- pitch voice)
My grandmother turned to us in mock gravity(her eyes dancing with mirth)'Is it true?"
We all shook our heads in collective negation of the crime.
"And that's not all Maa, they even had the temerity to laugh at my Muuni's back. My dear sweet Munni."
At which point, my grandmother thrust a ball of her cotton pallu(saree-end) into her mouth to stop her own giggle, face rapidly turning red.That was the cue for us all to erupt in joyous, gay laughter, and aunt beat a hasty retreat, grumbling, fuming.
She was Munnidi ,and she was not a girl, but an apparition of made-up beauty("fake, I am telling you, that mother of hers is spoiling her silly."-my grandmother would declare, her nose high up in the air),and totally out of place in our austere, no-nonsense home.
She and her mother would descend on our simple, non-descript house with all the pretensions and airs of the city-bred visiting the country cousin.They would arrive in a flurry of suitcases and bags, riding high on a wave of cologne/perfume/face cream-scented air into our rustic environs.
Munnidi's mother was the youngest daughter of my grandmother.She would indulge in this annual "high -profile visit" to our humble abode for two reasons. One , ostensibly, to meet her parents(i.e., my grandparents) and secondly to hunt for eligible grooms(IAS/ IPS officers of the highest sub-caste in the kayastha category, my poor hassled grandfather would be informed).
Her electric blue ambassador would be parked in the grounds and a poor, hapless, driver(she brought one along with her )would be forever scrubbing it down. She came from a place called Hazaribagh(she made it sound like the best place on the earth), where her husband was a "daroga"(in our childhood naivete, the best -paid job in the world) who was probably, driven to heights of bribery to meet his wife's and daughter's burgeoning demands,thereby remaining suspended for most of his lackluster career as a cop.
She would shop voraciously. In an age where materialism was frowned upon, she was the ultimate shopaholic.For chiffon sarees, sweetmeats, takeaway meals, anything that caught her fancy.She would bully shopkeepers for a good bargain,(mis) using my grandfather's and her disreputable cop husband's name .
She also had marked prejudices, and she made no effort to disguise them.Fair kids and male children were favoured over the dusky girls(her own daughter being of the' milky-white skin').
But the nadir of her bad behaviour came out in the open one day when she' stole'( or lured him away with false promises of better salary/cop-job)one of my granny's servants.The aunt had taken up residence in the same town as us , for a short period of time , as her husband had been posted there(on' demotion', was the whispered rumour). This lad must have been 14-15 years old, a highly impressionable age.
That meant war. My grandmother's hackles were raised. Like a wounded tigress, she did the best thing. She abandoned her errant cub. We stopped visiting the aunt. Later, she would come and apologise, bursting into uncontrolled sobs of remorse, one rainy evening, startling the normally sedate and sleepy maths teacher out of his chair.
But the wounds had been several, and too deep. In our collective memory, she still remains a laughing stock. Like all mothers, my grandmother forgave her.For us , she and her quirky nature is the stuff, family gossips are made of!!
A pair of gold bangled, manicured hands, with every perfectly shaped fingernail the colour of rubies, materialised at the drum-tap.
"What?"
We all scruffy, scrawny, country-rats looked up from our daily squabble at the drum-tap, all jostling, pushing and screaming frozen mid-scream, and mid-shove to view a picture of total, incredible contrast- a vision in orange and yellow chiffon saree,fumes of perfumes emanating from her peaches-and-cream skin, voluptuous lips painted bright red,perfect eyebrows framing pretty kohl-lined eyes, bent down, to wash her hands , in slow motion, as it were.
The shoving , pushing resumed the moment she left, but a lingering aroma of her mysterious perfume stayed on in the air.There was some swooning(fake), and raised eyebrows accompanied with hysterical giggles .
Suddenly, the mother appeared, looking very upset. We were informed that Munnidi was sobbing in the bedroom, and that we were to be blamed for the gross"miscarriage of justice".Someone(it was difficult to say who)touched her 'flower-petal hands'(exact words used by the fawning mother)with curd-besmirched hands. That too 'sour-curd'(here, our venerable aunt assumed a high- pitch voice)
My grandmother turned to us in mock gravity(her eyes dancing with mirth)'Is it true?"
We all shook our heads in collective negation of the crime.
"And that's not all Maa, they even had the temerity to laugh at my Muuni's back. My dear sweet Munni."
At which point, my grandmother thrust a ball of her cotton pallu(saree-end) into her mouth to stop her own giggle, face rapidly turning red.That was the cue for us all to erupt in joyous, gay laughter, and aunt beat a hasty retreat, grumbling, fuming.
She was Munnidi ,and she was not a girl, but an apparition of made-up beauty("fake, I am telling you, that mother of hers is spoiling her silly."-my grandmother would declare, her nose high up in the air),and totally out of place in our austere, no-nonsense home.
She and her mother would descend on our simple, non-descript house with all the pretensions and airs of the city-bred visiting the country cousin.They would arrive in a flurry of suitcases and bags, riding high on a wave of cologne/perfume/face cream-scented air into our rustic environs.
Munnidi's mother was the youngest daughter of my grandmother.She would indulge in this annual "high -profile visit" to our humble abode for two reasons. One , ostensibly, to meet her parents(i.e., my grandparents) and secondly to hunt for eligible grooms(IAS/ IPS officers of the highest sub-caste in the kayastha category, my poor hassled grandfather would be informed).
Her electric blue ambassador would be parked in the grounds and a poor, hapless, driver(she brought one along with her )would be forever scrubbing it down. She came from a place called Hazaribagh(she made it sound like the best place on the earth), where her husband was a "daroga"(in our childhood naivete, the best -paid job in the world) who was probably, driven to heights of bribery to meet his wife's and daughter's burgeoning demands,thereby remaining suspended for most of his lackluster career as a cop.
She would shop voraciously. In an age where materialism was frowned upon, she was the ultimate shopaholic.For chiffon sarees, sweetmeats, takeaway meals, anything that caught her fancy.She would bully shopkeepers for a good bargain,(mis) using my grandfather's and her disreputable cop husband's name .
She also had marked prejudices, and she made no effort to disguise them.Fair kids and male children were favoured over the dusky girls(her own daughter being of the' milky-white skin').
But the nadir of her bad behaviour came out in the open one day when she' stole'( or lured him away with false promises of better salary/cop-job)one of my granny's servants.The aunt had taken up residence in the same town as us , for a short period of time , as her husband had been posted there(on' demotion', was the whispered rumour). This lad must have been 14-15 years old, a highly impressionable age.
That meant war. My grandmother's hackles were raised. Like a wounded tigress, she did the best thing. She abandoned her errant cub. We stopped visiting the aunt. Later, she would come and apologise, bursting into uncontrolled sobs of remorse, one rainy evening, startling the normally sedate and sleepy maths teacher out of his chair.
But the wounds had been several, and too deep. In our collective memory, she still remains a laughing stock. Like all mothers, my grandmother forgave her.For us , she and her quirky nature is the stuff, family gossips are made of!!
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