“ Snake! Aryan!” we could decipher the muffled voice of my father from a cacophony of a rather vociferous, “bow, bow” mixed with “ doggie..shoo..shoo..” added with few other weird noises that I fail to replicate in mere words , emanating both from TV and my brother’s speakers!
I have been forced to face the limitations of 26 alphabets and the finite number of words that exist in English language, every time I try to describe my family! Just as I stood pondering over the linguistic inadequacies, an aggrieved stare from my sister in law, plunged me back to the precarious position I was in. Right at the borderline of being accepted into the “sanskari” fold or exiled into the “un-sanskari.”
My long suffering sister in law, rose above the petty squabbles that our mundane family offered her day in and day out. With her eyes at nothing less than martyrdom, she decided that the duty to her father- in – law, super ceded nursing her own wounds. The alacrity with which she rushed out to garden inspired my otherwise calm son to follow her and that ensured me following them. What surprised me was that the affronted lady Cat too was inspired by my sister in law’s lofty ideals and decided to bury the hatchet and sprinted after me, of course way much more graciously than any of us. When the Cat overtook each of us rather neatly almost into the forefront I suspected that she joined us only to show her perfectly sinuous body grating to the rhythm of my brother’s JBL speakers spitting out weird albeit repetitive noise! Not to be outdone my mother suddenly sprang into action too. Since the leader in question was my sister in law, even my brother’s telepathic system, picking up his wife’s vibes actually decided to operate on a physical level rather than mental and moral dimension that he usually limited himself to!
CRASH! BOOM! Meowww….. owwwww….. oh god… damn it…(*&#$(*#^ !!
Now dear readers, to comprehend exactly what happened, you all will have to envisage the scene rather than merely read it…
My not very light weighted sister in law, rushing and leading a train of few fully acknowledged homo sapiens, some not fully qualified home sapiens and the Cat, screeched to a halt rather suddenly and others not even remotely expecting this move, fell all over each other!
Why this debacle you ask?
Well apparently my sister in law, had spotted her arch enemy, the centipede at the garden. And that abomination on earth did not merely continue chomping on the leaves of her plant but actually resorted to antics breaching my sister in law’s modesty, falling short by just few millimetres, of actual sexual harassment. In an attempt to offend my sister in law, the centipede actually turned around and apparently lifted the rear portion of its body in full view of my sister in law and all this while continuously chomping on her plant. My humiliated and very indignant sister in law, maintained a very stoic and dignified stance I must say. For those of you who might think that why was my sister in law reacting so strongly to a mere centipede, let me remind you dear readers! This shameless anti- sanskari centipede actually didn’t have a stitch of cloth on its entire body! Yes! Dear readers, fully NUDE! Psst.....I hope this blog is read only by above 18 and is A certified! According to censor board, Indians, it seems can handle nudity or rather any "skin show" only after they are eighteen. Poor kids! They seemingly walk around assuming the kids are born....nay... brought by the storks...fully clothed.
I shamelessly tried to reinstate my position by shouting at the top of my voice that it is these kind of CENTIPEDES that threaten our culture and our vedic heritage!! My mom nodded seriously but my brother who was supposed to react chivalrously and challenge the offender for a duel at least, was staring rather white faced at the centipede. He is apparently petrified at anything which has more than 2 pairs of feet!! My son got up, heard all our conversations in disbelief and said,” it is worm… for heaven’s sake! Is this so important now??Look at grandpa!!”
And there was my father rolling in the mud slushed with water from the sprinklers, do I dare say rather gleefully, with Dog over him! But seeing the circus approaching, he sobered and one stare from my mother, and he spluttered,” wait, till you hear what happened!”
To be continued.......