Sisterhood of Whines and Gripes

Most of my faithful readers so far would know that my family comprises of my dad, Amma and a brat who happens to be younger to me by five years and three months that I love to exaggerate as five and a HALF years, in the vain hope that the HALF addendum might get me some extra respect and gravitas for my opinions!

How futile are the hopes. So now that I have introduced you to Amma ( A Shoe Story) and Dad ( Lost Memories, Lost Innocence), the last in the quartet is eagerly anticipating when she would feature in Word Sketches. That's how Sisterhood of Whines and Gripes began writing itself!

So this is an incident that happened yesterday. The maid decided to take an unexpected day off, unlike others working in this area, this one does not believe in carrying a mobile phone. So there is no way to reach her, if she decides she is not upto working today! We are literally at the mercy of a four feet something, forty kilos woman. So there was a mound of washing up that had been postponed as my backlog of work meant, I had little time to spare, except for updating Facebook and catching up with friends on g-chat!

My sisterly love bursts forth often, not that the brat will acknowledge, when I don't see her for long. My travels over the past two months have meant I am often in the mushy state of missing her or picking up something for her! Now that I was back and the maid was out, I decided washing the chai ka pateela and assorted stuff needed to be done just once, that is if chai was made just once the brat returned from work...So in a moment of abject sisterly affection, I wrote out a message ( kind of wifely one, that read, When are you expected home ji? The maid hasn't turned up today, so thought I'd wait for you to make chai). Now how innocent and loving is that message. The brat replies promptly saying Leaving in ten. I'd just gone back to working, when ping comes another message - Ehhh, does this mean I have to make chai??

Now you tell me, from that innocent message above, would you try to read between the lines like that?? Will you? Well, my brat did...Now truth be told, I think she makes better chai than I do. So there are days when I sweetly request her to make it. The brat, on her part, keeps a tally of the number of times she had to measure out the tea leaves into water and bring out mugs of chai. Just how much can you keep scores, you may ask?? Well, she can and how!! So coming back to the earlier message, my public stand is that when I told her upfront about the maid not turning up, it wasn't an exhortation to her to come home after a long day of work and act the role of the maid. On the contrary, she thinks that since I work from home, I'm like the proxy stay-at-home wife, who cooks and sews and keeps the house pretty. And younger brats, somehow get away with expecting all this and more!!

Wouldn't you agree with me that the innocent SMS I sent shouldn't have been mangled and interpreted as she did?? Now that she had, I asked her if she wanted to make chai and Good Lord, what a fuss she made...till the poor, harassed me dragged my tired self into the kitchen and silently made chai. I come back with the chai into the drawing room where she is sprawled in front of the television, looks at me with unholy glee in her eyes and says, I told everyone on Facebook how shrewd you are...Now in our day and age, imagine being written about on Facebook??? Holy sacrilege ...so the brat's status update read - "You have got to love your sister when she sends you messages like "Maid hasn't come today, waiting for you to come home to make chai"...sigh...such a delight"...

I was just gulping down that harsh message, which had thoughtfully tagged me in it too,  when the barrage of Likes and Comments began...unprecedented traffic on her page - mirthfully she counted 20 likes and an assorted number of messages, largely from my friends!!! No one could believe, I could treat the younger one like the cruel stepmother in Cinderella...And she wallowed in it all, washing dirty laundry in public about how I find weird excuses for not making chai!!

A tragedy of Grecian proportions, wouldn't you say?? Now my reputation lies in tatters, I maintained a dignified silence on Facebook and decided to pour my heart out here!! How do you deal with the sisterhood of whines and gripes?? How???

( Rejoinder: The Brat realised from the look of absolute mischief on my face that I was up to no good this morning, and promptly she concluded that I must be blogging about her. She has warned me that if I am not charitable to her, she will bash my face in...And I have reasons to be scared, she has about four and a half inches in height over me making me look like a little puny nothing, when she puffs up in mean anger! 


So my friends, be measured in your analysis of my situation. You do not want me to be a statistic in the annals of those martyred in the way of domestic abuse! Ohhh and if you liked this post, I will unburden myself about other childhood traumas too that I suffered at the hands of the little 666 in my life!) 

( Photo courtesy: Aly &AJ Cartoon Pictures)