My aunt drove in her enormous , air conditioned SUV , roaring through dust and potholes , to meet us . Or rather , meet my grandparents . As we lived with our grandparents , she had to meet us too , no escaping . She was rich and snooty . Everything about her dripped with opulence , making us feel like threadbare beggars in contrast .
She would come with a retinue of servants . One to fetch her stuff from the car , heat her bathwater , massage her feet , and the other to drive her beastly vehicle . She used air conditioning at a time when we had just about memorised its spelling . Everything about her was mesmerisingly foreign , and otherworldly . She used a vanity case to get dressed . We had definitely heard of one , but never seen one being used . She used innumerable lotions and powders on her pretty face , lipstick and lipgloss , mascara and other foreign -sounding things . She smelt heavenly ,like a God . We thought she floated on air.
She would make us feel wretched for days on end .We would take roughly a week to recover from her whistle stop visits (always unannounced), some of us would even miss school. My mother would mope around with a dazed look , embittered to the core.
Aunt was her sister-in-law , and it didn't help . Ma too had come from a similar background of unbridled consumerism , and she was hit hard by my grandparents' parsimonious ways , and general austere outlook to life.
Remarks like "even Monu (the foot-massager) won't eat this stuff ", would cut her to the quick . Her wounds were deep , and never healed . We would go back to school , talk to classmates , make fun of Aunt , and get her out of our systems . Ma couldn't . Aunt was , all said and done , my grandparents' daughter . All that resentment kept sitting inside Ma , going bad .
Till one day , my grandmother found some of her own daughter's remarks very funny. We came back from school one day , and were surprised to see Ma and grandma , laughing their hearts out. It was a rare sound . In our tightlipped household , open laughter was welcome like the first rain of monsoons . Ma was in good mood for a long time later , I remember .
She would come with a retinue of servants . One to fetch her stuff from the car , heat her bathwater , massage her feet , and the other to drive her beastly vehicle . She used air conditioning at a time when we had just about memorised its spelling . Everything about her was mesmerisingly foreign , and otherworldly . She used a vanity case to get dressed . We had definitely heard of one , but never seen one being used . She used innumerable lotions and powders on her pretty face , lipstick and lipgloss , mascara and other foreign -sounding things . She smelt heavenly ,like a God . We thought she floated on air.
She would make us feel wretched for days on end .We would take roughly a week to recover from her whistle stop visits (always unannounced), some of us would even miss school. My mother would mope around with a dazed look , embittered to the core.
Aunt was her sister-in-law , and it didn't help . Ma too had come from a similar background of unbridled consumerism , and she was hit hard by my grandparents' parsimonious ways , and general austere outlook to life.
Remarks like "even Monu (the foot-massager) won't eat this stuff ", would cut her to the quick . Her wounds were deep , and never healed . We would go back to school , talk to classmates , make fun of Aunt , and get her out of our systems . Ma couldn't . Aunt was , all said and done , my grandparents' daughter . All that resentment kept sitting inside Ma , going bad .
Till one day , my grandmother found some of her own daughter's remarks very funny. We came back from school one day , and were surprised to see Ma and grandma , laughing their hearts out. It was a rare sound . In our tightlipped household , open laughter was welcome like the first rain of monsoons . Ma was in good mood for a long time later , I remember .
No comments:
Post a Comment