Saturday, May 12, 2012

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) 

21 comments:

  1. hahaha. My brat is 8 years younger but fortunately shorter by 2 inches. But to tell you frankly, I would have interpreted your message in the same way as she did :-)

    I would not pour it on fb though. Agree on that with you. Hope that's a consolation for u :-P

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    1. Eeeesh, Jenny, my friend, Et tu?? :) Though if she had made chai and then cribbed, then I'd have agreed with you more...Having to make chai and then hear her was like insult on injury...:)

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  2. Such a beautiful post! But for the FB part I too take sides of the brat at a huge risk of earning your wrath:)

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    1. Hahaha and here I thought my blogging would increase the tribe of my supporters! The brat will be super happy to know that she has so many backing her. :)

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  3. Ah siblings!Love them,hate them,can't do without them....
    Smiled through the entire post:)BTW,was the maid message really that innocent?!I know I can go to great lengths to be served a cup of chai in my hand.

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    1. Sharmila, see you are the only one who asked the right question...the maid message was indeed as innocent as it was..it was in fact, the brat's reading between the lines, based on my known aversion for making it, that made me realise this message has a twist like that too that I could exploit if I was too lazy after she gets home! But but but..the truth is it was I who made chai!!!! :) Therefore, my lord, I say I must be given the benefit of doubt!

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    2. Haha, I knew I could argue my way to get a favourable decision..:) :)

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  4. So THIS is how my elder brother would feel when I wrote about him heheheeh :)

    Errr...but she is right na....your message even made me feel that you just wanted her to make the chai :)

    We second borns are always subjected to such things by the first borns gah! *Journomuse's sister if you are reading this comment - I hear you!!*

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    1. R's Mom, you have no clue how much interference the first borns run with parents for the second born brats!! :) We are in fact, like the experimental laboratory, where the skill of parenting is learnt and then you second borns have such a merry ride!!!

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  5. I agree with you about learning the skills of parenting with the first one and then taking it easy with the second one. Ask my first born and he will wholeheartedly agree with you. :) But you should learn to use punctuation marks while messaging. No wonder the younger one read it the way she thought it was meant. :D

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    1. Aunty Nag, the SMS cares not for punctuations, we shorten everything and full stops and commas are casualties of the SMS...now if the brat decides to read what she wants into it, it shouldn't be blamed on me, should it now?? :) :)

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  6. I totally understand the whole chai making thing.If one person makes much better tea than I do,I'll just let them make. :D

    Poor you,your good intentions were so misread.Loved the post!!!

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    1. Wow Blue Lotus, you are the SOLE person, the sole person who ungrudgingly said my good intentions were misread! :) Glad you saw the point I was trying to make! The world seems to be filled with the brat supporters...

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  7. Jisha Kishore Kumar16 May 2012 at 16:57

    Haahaaa...I totally agree with you...you gave voice to my thoughts since childhood. I have two younger brats at home...just imagine my sad plight...:D:D Keep writing Deepthy...God Bless!

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    1. Lovely to see my tribe of supporters increasing..first Blue Lotus and now you Jisha!! :) Only the older ones understand the trauma of being the guinea pigs for their parents to experiment on...the little bossiness that we subject our younger ones to is nothing compared to the autocracy our first time parents practised on us!! :)

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    2. Jisha Kishore Kumar18 May 2012 at 19:33

      Haaahaaaa Deepthy, I laughed my head off...guinea pigs...:D:D:D and I agree on the "experiment" aspect...:P:P to which now my elder princess is subject to...:P:P

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    3. Sigh!!! the older ones are always lab-rats!! and the younger ones are the pampered kittens!! :)

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    4. Jisha Kishore Kumar23 May 2012 at 12:32

      Heehee...my sisters should hear this..!!As of them it is the other way round and they can present several examples including Bhima, esp the MT's Randaamuzham fame..:):) Btw, do you read Malayalam works?

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    5. I'm really ashamed to admit it, but I have read most of the Malayalam classics of MT especially and a few of Thakazhis and OV Vijayan in English. Although I can read and write Malayalam, its largely self-taught. And the way I savour English words and turn of phrases, I am not that effortless while reading Malayalam. However, the effort is on to tackle Malayalam in Malayalam itself..Soon maybe Ill be able to answer in the positive...

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    6. Jisha Kishore Kumar27 May 2012 at 14:13

      :):) As you can read Malayalam, you must trying the original version of MT's works of which am in great awe, his style is unmatchable...!

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