LIP SYMPATHY AND CROCODILE TEARS
[a short story]
By
VIKRAM KARVE
The doorbell rings. The woman called Manjula opens the door.
“We’ve come to fit the air-conditioner,” the man outside says.
“What? We haven’t ordered any AC,” the woman says and begins to close the door.
“Wait!” her husband’s voice says from behind the man. He’s come home early from work. He guides the man inside while his wife Manjula looks on in bewilderment.
“AC? You gone crazy? You just go and order an AC without even telling me?” Manjula asks her husband.
“Mother told me to get it. Smita and her family are coming,” the husband explains.
“Oh! So all this is for your darling sister and foreign husband, is it? When we ask for a cooler you crib, and for them it’s an AC!”
“He’s not a foreigner. He’s of Indian origin settled there.”
“So why does he need an AC?”
“Mother said they wouldn’t be able to stand the heat here, especially the kids.”
“Listen, Houston is much hotter and humid than here.”
“Maybe. But they are used to air conditioning.”
Please don’t argue with me – as it is the heat is driving me crazy!”
The bell rings again.
“It must be the commode,” her husband says and goes to open the door.
“Commode?”
“Yes. Western Style.”
“This is too much! I’ve seen her shitting in the open, in the fields near our village, when she was a kid. And now she’s an NRI and wants to defecate western style? Bloody snobs, I don’t know why they come here and try to show off. And you, the perfect dutiful Mamma’s boy – no guts of your own!”
“What’s the matter? Is everything ready?” she hears her mother-in-law’s stern voice from behind, so Manjula lowers her face and slips away into the kitchen.
“Her name is Manjula [sweet voiced] but she speaks so uncouthly,” her mother says sarcastically.
“Her name is Smita [cheerful] but have you ever seen her smiling or laughing – just carps and cribs all the time,” Manjula mutters to herself.
The NRI guests arrive from Houston, and the next few days are hell for Manjula, physically and mentally. She dies a thousand deaths in her heart seeing the favoritism of her mother-in-law towards her sister-in-law and her family and is unable to bear the patronizing attitude of her guests and the subservient groveling of her husband before his mother. And all the time Smita make sarcastic barbs at Manjula and her incompetence, offering lip sympathy and shedding crocodile tears at old woman’s ‘agony’. And Manjula’s dear husband remains silent, a mute spectator! Why can’t he stand up for her?
One evening, they’ve invited a large number of guests to dinner, and while Smita is reveling in the paeans of praise being showered by her mother and her cronies, Manjula slogs it out in the kitchen.
“See Smita’s house in Houston,” the old woman boasts, showing everyone a photo album [which all NRI’s invariably bring with them to impress us ‘natives’!]. “It’s got a swimming pool, and her children, they are so accomplished, and her husband…” she goes on and on till Manjula can’t take it any more and she interrupts rudely, “ Mummyji, if you like it so much here, why don’t you go and stay there with your darling daughter?”
“What?” her mother-in-law asks disbelievingly.
“I mean, Smita is your own darling daughter after all, and I am sure she will look after you much better than me, isn’t it? After all, they are so well-off, and caring and loving. I’m sure it’s better for you to go there and live in luxury like a Maharani rather than suffering it out here with us!” Manjula says instinctively, but seeing the fiery look in her mother-in-law’s eyes, she starts to tremble.
Time freezes. Manjula feels tremors of trepidation wondering what is going to happen next. She has gone too far this time.
There is silence. A grotesque silence! And suddenly Manjula hears her husband’s voice, “I think Manjula is right.”
“What are you saying?” Smita asks astonished.
“I am saying that Manjula is right. It would be much better is mother stayed with you at Houston for some time. You’ve also got to take some responsibility and look after her, isn’t it?” her husband says firmly to his mother, and then he turns towards Manjula and looks at her in a way she has never seen before.
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright 2007 Vikram Karve
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com
vikramkarve@sify.com
Showing posts with label diaspora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diaspora. Show all posts
Monday, May 07, 2007
Thursday, October 26, 2006
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
(a short story)
by
VIKRAM KARVE
A middle aged woman watches the sun set from the balcony of her tenth floor flat of one of those ubiquitous residential “townships” rapidly sprawling and proliferating around the once remote suburb of Aundh on the outskirts of the once beautiful and picturesque city of
“Good news,” his wife says exuberantly, giving him his customary cup of tea.
“What?” the husband asks nonchalantly, carefully pouring the precise amount of tea from the cup into the saucer and lifting the saucer to his lips to enjoy his tea in his usual habitual manner.
“Nalini is pregnant,” the wife exults.
“At long last! I’m so glad she found time from her busy schedule,” the husband comments acerbically and noisily sips his tea in his customary style.
“Don’t be sarcastic. She’s a career woman. Aren’t you happy?”
“Of course I’m happy. I’m over 50 now – it’s high time I became a grandfather.”
“I’ll have to go?”
“Where?”
“For her delivery.”
“To
“Yes. Her due date is sometime in November. I better go as early as possible, maybe in September. Poor thing, it’s her first child. You better get the visas and all ready well in time. Nalini wants me to stay for at least three-four months after her delivery.”
“Three-four months after her delivery? So you’ll be away for nearly six months.”
“Yes. I’m her mother and I have to be there to help her. It’s her first delivery. And that too in
“What about me?”
“You also come and help out.”
“I won’t get six months’ leave.”
“Come for a month. To see the baby. In December.”
“I’ll see. But I don’t like it there. It’s too cold.”
“Then stay here.”
“I wish we hadn’t shifted from Sadashiv Peth.”
“Why? Isn’t this lovely apartment better than those two horrible rented rooms we had? And it’s all thanks to Nalini.”
“I know. I know. Don’t rub it in. But sometimes I wish we hadn’t pushed her into IT. We should have let her study arts, history, literature – whatever she wanted to.”
“And it would have been difficult to find a decent boy for her and she would be languishing like an ordinary housewife with no future; slogging away throughout her life like me.”
“And we would be still staying in the heart of the city and not in the wilderness out here. And you wouldn’t have to go all the way to
“Don’t change the topic.”
“I’m not,” says the husband firmly. “You are not going for Nalini’s delivery to
“But why? She is sending the ticket.”
“It’s not the money. The fact is I don’t want to stay all alone at this age; it’s difficult. And in this godforsaken place full of snobs I don’t even have any friends.”
“Try to understand. I have to be there. It’s her first delivery.”
“Tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t American women have babies?”
“Yes. Of course they do.”
“And do they always have their mothers around pampering them during their deliveries? And then mollycoddling their babies for the next few months, maybe even a year?”
“I don’t know,” she said evading an answer, “for them it’s different.”
“Different?”
“Our kobra girls are najuk.”
“Najuk?”
“Delicate. Fragile.”
“Nonsense. They are as tough as any one else. It’s all in the mind. It’s only our mindset that’s different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thousands of women who have migrated from all over the world are delivering babies in
“Don’t argue with me. It’s our culture, tradition. A daughter’s first delivery is her mother’s responsibility.”
“Culture? Tradition? What nonsense! It’s not culture. It’s attitude! Our people may have physically migrated to
“Please stop your lecturing. I’m fed up of hearing…” the wife pleads.
The husband continues as if he hasn’t heard her, “What they require is attitudinal change and to stop their double standards. Nonsense! Nobody forced them to go to
“Please. Please. Please. Enough! I beg of you. Don’t argue. Just let me go.”
“No. I can’t stay alone for six months. Why should I?”
“Try to understand. I’ve told you a hundred times. It’s our only daughter’s first delivery. I have to be there.”
“Okay. Tell her to come here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Here. We’ll do her delivery right here in Pune. We’ll go to the best maternity hospital and then you can keep her here as long as you want. She’ll be comfortable, the weather will be good and you can pamper her and her baby to your heart’s content.”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘No’? You went to your mother’s place for your deliveries isn’t it? And came back after the babies were more than three months old.”
“That was different. I wasn’t working.”
“Oh. It’s about her job is it? I’m sure they have maternity leave out there. She can take a break. And if she wants to go back early we’ll look after the kid for a couple of months and then I’ll take leave and we’ll both go and drop him there.”
The wife says nothing.
“Give me the phone. I’ll ring her up and tell her to come here as early as possible. I’ll convince her she will be more comfortable here,” the husband says.
“I’ve already spoken to her,” the wife says.
“And?”
“She wants the baby to be born there. Something about citizenship.”
“So that’s it,” the husband says, “She wants the best of both worlds, isn’t it?”
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright 2006 Vikram Karve
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com
http://foodiekarve.sulekha.com
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