Thoughts in Words

  Sampath came from Bangalore, and I came from Madras (I prefer English names of places as it is classy, unlike the politicised ones). We both had a lot in common. The only issue was that Bangaloreans generally looked down upon Madrasis. I believe they had pubs affordable by college students and we didn’t have! As a matter of fact, even now. Now that made a huge difference in our cosmopolitan, cultural outlook, as per them. That was one thing I lost out on, while I was abreast with him on most other things.   He was good at racquet games and cue sports. He was not into field games like football. Now I was into most of the field games as also into racquet games and cue sports. The game of "Pool”, was not even heard of those days by which I mean more than two score and five years ago. And in any case, it is no patch to the class of Billiards and Snooker. Sampath looked at field games with disdain. So, it was incumbent on me to match him game for game in his turf.  ...

Right from many years ago, our mother had the habit of getting into a chat with poor people walking across our house, especially the children and the old. Very often, her inquisitive questions discovered children who were denied schooling by their parents. She dared to call such parents, give them a dressing down and insist that they send the kids to school. Toffees and biscuits to the kids were a given. If it is the old and frail that she encountered, she would find some jobs for them in the house and on that excuse feed them and give clothes on festival days, apart from token money as salary. Those days we had an independent house with a small but lush garden full of flowers and various fruit-bearing trees. So she could maintain their dignity intact, in the jobs she made them perform. After she became a widow, she shunned coloured sarees. Still, it was not the drab white ones she wore. She liked her white sarees sprinkled with tiny little flowers or patterns in soft colours. In ...

No. The title is not an oxymoron. Or is it? There are two kinds of mothers-in-law. One is the boy's mother and the other, the girl's mother. If the boy had grown up as a "mother's boy", his bride may run into problems, not because of the new mother but because of the stupid boy. There is no such speciality for a girl. The girl can only be "father's girl", and that has never been an aberration. Neither is if she is a "mother's girl". This mother-in-law issue is a myth. God knows who created it. As regards the myth that women are the weaker sex, man created it and women being gullible, although much stronger, fell for it. Here man gained, or he thought, the fool! But who is the gainer in creating a monster out of the mother-in-law? More often than not, it is the boy's mother who is made out to be so, right? To get back from this meaningless digression, my mother-in-law turned out to be a motivator for me. You see, she insulte...