Some people, whose mailboxes I may or may not have flooded
with links to my blog, have enquired why my blog is called what it is.
If you took it literally, you wouldn’t be off the mark. Fish
is always preferred. To everything.
(Except maybe chicken.)
However, “Fish Preferred” is also the name of a book by
Wodehouse. His other titles include “Aunt’s aren’t Gentlemen”, the “Code of the
Woosters”, and “Uncle Fred in the Springtime”. As the titles suggest, Wodehouse wrote heavily
about family-batty cousins, battier aunts, and even battier uncles (besides
prize pumpkins and award-winning pigs). Since I have an enviable collection of
these (batty relatives that is, not pumpkins and pigs), I decided their
misadventures would make for fantastic writing fodder. Of course, it didn’t pan
out that way. Half of the posts on the blog have me cribbing, a fourth have me
gush about movies/t.v. shows/ authors. In two years of blogging, only two posts
featured relatives-one cousin and one aunt.
Part of it has to do
with the fact that I cannot be physically dragged into a family re-union/
function anymore. So I just don’t meet them that often. The rest of it has to do with me finding a relative I can bring myself to like. Who I wouldn’t have found unless
the rest of the brood-actually only Malini di-had not existed.
I wasn’t feeling so charitable towards her that day though,
when that call came. It was about 1 o’clock on a wintry Saturday-only late
morning for me. I had been snuggling inside the quilt, reading, and the phone
had been lying in the living room. I tumbled out of the bed, and failing to locate
my slippers, had to run barefoot on the cold floor, towards the ringing mobile.
It was only to be expected then, that my “Hello” to Malini di didn’t sound too
enthused.
She asked me how my life and I were. I replied I was great.
She decided I was joking and laughed a nice, polite laugh.
“I am in the city. Do you want to meet up? Get a bite?” she
asked.
I hesitated a little, before replying-weighing the benefits
of free food against the costs of stepping out in Delhi on a winter evening.
Plus would the food even be free? I did have a job now, however little it
paid…If we met in a nice, up-market restaurant, would I be expected to foot the
bill? But she is older…surely protocol dictates that she pay…
“Or maybe we could come over to your place? I’d rather not
be out in this cold”, she said before my inner voice could allow my real voice
to answer.
“Sure”, I replied. Then wondered what level of familial
censure a “no” would have caused.
Meanwhile she fixed the time. Then tried to make small talk
but I stopped her mid-sentence to remind her that we were meeting later anyway.
I was depending on talk of the weather, the fog, the traffic, and the upcoming
Delhi elections to take us through the better part of the evening.
* * *
I looked down from the balcony
when I heard an auto honk below. I could see the top of Malini di’s head, as
she struggled to pull something out of the auto. It turned out to be a rather
large suitcase. My inner voice shrieked in horror. Malini di seemed to hear
that for she immediately looked up. I waved half-heartedly, and she gave me her
famous dimpled smile. I saw that she had gotten fringes now, which seemed like
an age-inappropriate choice. I decided to let her know that, if she threatened
to stay with me. She looked towards the auto once again from which a bag was
half-protruding out. My heart skipped a beat, as I realised someone inside the
auto was holding it out.
“Or
maybe we could come over to your place?”
We, she
had said.
It suddenly dawned upon me that
Malini di had gotten married since the last time we had met. Some
painter-Dhrittimaan Chatterjee or Mukherjee or something. Or was it Ray? I saw
a curly head of hair get out of the auto now.
* * *
The curly head of hair was
attached to a rather thin, wiry body. That of my new brother-in-law, who sat
squatting on the mattress in my living room, dipping a glucose biscuit into the tumbler of tea I had offered him. I could see the biscuit crumbs merrily fall on his tiny French beard on to his green oversized kurta, which he had worn over a pair of faded jeans. The curly hair fell over his eyes which he kept flicking away periodically. The
unmistakeable signs of aatel, I noted
with some satisfaction.
Malini di sat
beside him, sipping from her glass. Periodically, she would adjust herself, and
then look around the room, a pained look crossing her face, every time she did.
It could be the newspapers strewn about the floor, my disbelief in the idea of
chairs, or the bitter taste of the tea that was causing her, her consternation.
“So mashi said you don’t have a roommate”,
Malini di said, once she realised that I had registered her facial expression.
“Yeah, my roommate left,
because she thought there were bed-bugs in the house”, I lied.
Then I started painting her a picture of the
terror the bugs had unleashed, but my brother-in-law interrupted to say that he
wanted to use the bathroom. I indicated to him the one inside my room, and then
resumed my gory narrative. She almost let out an audible sigh of relief when he
returned, and gathered the tea tumblers to take them to the kitchen.
I heard her turn on the tap in
the kitchen. She had begun washing the tea utensils. If I hadn’t known that it
was a ruse to avoid conversation with me, I would have been touched.
Meanwhile, the brother-in-law
had positioned himself on the mattress again and was smiling vacantly at me. I
smiled back.
Then he outstretched his hand,
at a 90 degrees angle from his body, and grunted noisily, while waving the
hand. I leapt in surprise. He laughed at my shock.
“It’s an elephant, no?” he
asked stupidly. Then repeated the action to show me that he was acting like an
elephant. Apparently, this was regular behaviour from him, because Malini di kept
up the utensil washing. Either that, or she was still studiously avoiding
contact with me. And her weirdo husband.
“Yes, very nice,” I finally
said, deciding he wouldn’t hurt me if I patronised him.
He laughed, then pointed at the
luggage.
“That is the elephant, in this very nice room.”
I shook my head, believing that
to be a neutral action, to which no meaning could be attached.
“So can we stay? We need a
place for about three weeks. I have an exhibition here. We were going to stay
with friends but that did not work out”.
I started mumbling. I was beginning
to like him.
“We can take the spare room
with the bug infestation”, he smiled. A pleasant smile.
“And you can say no. Even if
this ambush seems to suggest otherwise”.
I couldn’t say no.
It’s been 11 months since the
first meeting. My first meeting with my current room-mates.
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