Nourish-n-Cherish

Evaluation is a solemn task and deserves to be treated as such. The father has not been called to use his rating, ranking and evaluation skills for sometime now and when the opportunity presented itself, he took to it like an elephant spraying water on himself on a hot day. His face lit up and his facial features shone with the light of sincerity.

He had a ready quip for all those interested – something about doing a task with complete sincerity or not doing it at all. The occasion was the culinary competition that the mother took part in. The competition was a fund raiser for the Cancer Institute Foundation. Once the judges did their part of the judging, the audience were called upon to weigh in. We were asked to rate the dishes on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest for every entrant. The announcer had barely finished her sentence when the audience made a beeline for the tasting extravaganza. While most people tasted a dish and rated it then and there; the father was studiously writing something on scraps of paper and screwing up his face with intense concentration. I asked him what he was doing and he said something about correcting a brilliant student’s paper first was always a bit of a disappointment (for the student) because one subconsciously compares different answer scripts in their minds and when one had seen a number of average answer scripts before seeing the brilliant one, one tends to award more weightage to the brilliant script, while if the brilliant answer script came up first, we naturally assume that the remaining will be comparable. My head swam a little at this point, it may have been the effect of the dish I was popping in my mouth to taste at the time, or the fact that I had listened to this philosophy once too many times – the effect of growing in a household filled with teachers. I decided to leave him to it, just telling him not to take his own sweet time about it, since they planned to use our feedback for judging by the end of the day.

By the time I had made my way to the end of the line, he was midway through – weighing and pro-ing and con-ing no doubt. This was the mother’s entry for the competition. Reluctant though she was, I went ahead and registered her name and she pulled off an admirable dish.

The father was asked to stay away from the kitchen and further told to keep all jokes regarding the dish and what he thought of the mother’s ability in the kitchen to himself. Therefore, he decided to show solidarity to his wife when it came to the audience judging round and came beaming around to her after he had evaluated every single entrant.

“You know? Objectively speaking it was your dish that I liked the best taste-wise….” he said still looking rather proud of himself. “I ranked you first in the whole lot!”
He received a smile from his bride, and his face became happier still.

“You mean, you gave her a 1?” I asked incredulously.
“Of course….” he said, and cracked another joke about his knowing his wife’s worth in the culinary department always, but competitions such as these served to remind him, and chuckled good humouredly to himself. The poor man, I could not have helped him – it was too late. Thine loving eyes of his bride were piercing him with arrows other than what Cupid would have used.

Being quick on the uptake, he said, “What?”
I then proceeded to illuminate him that what he had been asked to do was rate the dishes on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest.
“You mean rate, not rank?” he asked looking worried.

I nodded. Suddenly, it all made sense. The comparative brilliant paper philosophy, the noting down everything and then ranking them 1-10. Since there were more than 10 teams, he even seem to have applied dense ranks.

It was like watching a balloon deflate before your eyes – the smile waned, the look was worried, and the expression sombre. He had the haunted look of a man who had more than dinner at stake. I sympathized with him and patted him gently on the arm. Luckily for him, the mother was selected to go on for the Finals in spite of his ..er.. ‘help’, and he revived a little on hearing this news.

Well…there is always a next time….

I normally ignore marketing calls or deflect them with dexterity. But one day, I got stuck. I was feeling particularly lethargic after a largish meal and sitting out in the garden thinking of this and that – you know musing on life. One of those rare days that life awards you, and in this weakened state, the telemarketer caught me. The hound.

He told me I might die any instant and that by not insuring my life for an additional amount, I am doing my family a grave injustice. It seemed a bit unlikely. I mean, I was sitting under some very large trees, but there did not seem to be much of a storm about to dislodge them from the soil and crash them on me just then. Moreover, I told him I already had insurance. It did not seem to deter him. He just went on, about how it would cost me nothing, and all I had to do was die. I didn’t like the strain of this talk, and told him I wasn’t interested. He increased his level of whatever-it-was he was trying to do, and I increased the strength with which I resisted his efforts. Neither budged, neither gave in. We circled each other at that perfect stance that boxers reluctant to throw that first punch do. Our words were our punches, though I cannot claim to infusing any sort of variety into my comebacks. They were all variations of “No thank you, I am not interested right now.” As you know there are only so many ways one can say that sentence, and my patience was starting to wear thin.

I could not use the technique of not knowing the language, since I had already explained in perfect English that he was being a relentless hound, and he would be better served if he diverted his energies elsewhere. Finally, when this fellow refused to give up, I asked him with all the remaining reserves of energy left in me, if I could ask him a question. I felt him gloat on the other end. Finally. He had elicited my interest, and now all he had to do was close the deal and get the fat commission check and go home basking in his triumphant glory.
“Do you like dogs?” I asked.
“Yes…” he drew out his response. Unsure and wondering where the conversation was going. The very effect I was going for. Serves him right – he isn’t the only one who can gloat.
“So, as long as I am polite, you will not relent is it? Is that how it works? Because if that is the reason, I can just say something rude about dogs and end this conversation for both of us right now. Quick and painless…”

Do you know what he did when I asked him this? He chuckled and giggled like a pup caught in the act of chewing the carpet. I have already called him a hound and compared him to a puppy, so I find it a bit unfair to compare him to any other animal now, but I am sorely tempted. At least he had the decency to hang up soon afterward, but left me wondering for a few minutes. I mean what a job to be trained to make otherwise polite people impolite?

A slight breeze shook the tree overhead and I scrambled indoors. I didn’t want to tempt fate just yet.

We bolster independent decision making. I know … you think these are mere words? In our case we have proof. The television in our household has taken the philosophy straight to its heart . The television now decides for us when and for how long we get to watch television. The one thing it lacks is finesse. When cutting off our viewing, it does so rather abruptly and rudely. It just goes BLEEP accompanied by similar cursing from the viewers and sits there smirking at you.

This behavior on the part of the television has been viewed as base treachery by the husband, who regards the TV with a fond affection, having spent many fruitless hours in its company. He simply cannot believe that when it has received so much attention, it should flip out in this uncouth manner. When simple things did not work, the husband resorted to the one thing software engineers are comfortable doing to televisions. He gave it a well aimed whack on its backside. He claims to have seen the mechanic in his locality as a boy doing the same to radios and tape recorders with amazing results. I personally think the first one was delivered in frustration and passed off as scientific nudging.

Anyway, that seemed to work for a while, but the TV now seems blaise about even this and refuses to start up again till it finds a time convenient for it.

In other news, there has been considerable excitement about a tooth fairy visiting the house. The daughter exclaimed loudly and bursting with excitement that the tooth fairy gave her EXACTLY what she wished for. I must mention that the tooth fairy from Amazon.com has been hiding in the closet for more than a month now waiting to give the gift.  The daughter’s tooth shook and shook, till it finally fell off one day. The historic event happened in her school and they were sweet enough to give her a tooth case with the precious tooth to place under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

Since tooth fairies are this intuitive and give you exactly what you wish for these days and considering the husband seems rather forlorn with the television’s continued apathy towards his state; it may be good idea to knock out one of his teeth one of these days just to see what he’d get. There is one problem though, the tooth fairy seems rather petite and bringing in a TV might not be possible. Wonder if they have any baggage restrictions. Hmm….

I don’t like to think of myself as an opportunistic girl, but then I thought, if I am actually encouraging an all-night revelry with his friends involving beer, wine and other variants of OH compounds; I might as well get something out of it. You know for being the understanding, accommodating spouse simply dripping with the human milk of kindness and all that. I am referring to the World Cup Fever that gripped most Indian households in the past week.

The husband made plans and backup plans just in case something interrupted (Gasp!) the match telecast in between – he had it all sorted out a few days in advance. I must tell you he made no plans for our stay on our honeymoon,  and sat up calling random hotels late into the night the previous day begging and pleading to put us up, but that is germane to this issue. The India Vs Sri Lanka match is the point here.

Patriotism aside, I said, “If India wins the World Cup, I want you to get a gardener who will bring some level of order to the backyard.” The back yard looks like the ecosystem belonging to forests, the plants die and the cycle of life blooms in wildflowers and weeds. I personally would have liked for it to have some trails too, but there is no place for trails. Not to mention the dried leaves from the neighbor’s giant tree that shakes itself and deposits around 3 metric tons of dried leaves in my garden every year. The problem is the garden is not big enough to have someone come in regularly and clearly too much for me to manage on my own. So it wilts and throws me looks of disdain every time I pass by. I wince and strengthen my resolve to have the “situation rectified”, and there matters stand.

“If you don’t call a gardener, I shall rake the leaves myself today.” I added for good measure. The husband has had a good Indian upbringing with regular doses of guilt as part of his diet and things like this did not seem to deter him.

“I will call the gardener.” he repeated.

“Yes….but if you can’t find one, I’ll do it.” Still nothing. The stubborn mule.

Well…I’ve had training too, and did not retreat. In fact, I kept upping the dosage till he backed off and said, “Okay…if I can’t find a gardener, I’ll rake the leaves and make the garden look like one.”

So far, I have only seen elephants throw mud on their heads, but if Dhoni can shave his head for the World Cup, the ardent supporter of the Indian Team for the past 3 decades can surely throw some mud over his head. *Insert Evil grin*

Update: The garden now resembles Dhoni’s head – bald and clean!

There is a wedding I remember particularly well. I don’t remember who got married exactly. Somebody is always getting married in these elaborate Hindu rituals in our family that I certainly can’t be expected to keep track. Well, what is that I remember you ask. A fair question. I remember my mother looking ravishing in a MS blue saree. That saree was becoming of her, and I really liked it because it was a simple, elegant one that suited my mother’s pinkish hues perfectly. In fact, every time somebody complimented her, she blushed uncharacteristically and turned a deeper shade of pink that clashed with the brilliant blue. (The father had bought her the saree as a surprise, and she thought she had to blush every time somebody said the saree was looking good. I told her that that part of the proceedings was unnecessary, but what the mind knows, it cannot undo.) So, there she sat, looking resplendent and blushing periodically.

The wedding was a South Indian one, and wherever you turned, there seemed to be a photographer looking harried and clicking photograph after photograph. To me, it seemed like the crowd was spotted liberally with these sorry looking photographers till I realized that they were all the same guy – he just seemed different by looking harried at varying levels. Anyway, this man dodged the crowds and kept clicking all around my beautiful mother, never once capturing her at her finest. It looked like he was swarming all around her, but not a single photograph of her sitting there turned up in the wedding album, which we were invited to see later despite strong protests from my end. “Bad enough I sat through the wedding!” was not a good enough protest apparently.

Anyway, while thumbing through the album I noticed that the photographer had waited and waited till she beat it to the dining hall and stuffed her face with three idlis and a vada before taking his photograph. So, there she was looking like a particularly vindictive dentist wrought havoc on her face in the wedding album instead of looking divine and smiling like she ought to. One side of her face was swollen with the idli so badly that had I not seen the size of the idlis served that evening, I would not have believed the feat possible.

Where am I going with all this you ask? Well…We’d been on a cruise recently. A 3 day affair that was spotted about with plenty of food and exotic desserts. Not only were there formal dinners where everyone looked smashing, but there were photographers as well. Ha! Now you see where this leads? These guys wanted to catch me at my stuffed face best, and this episode with my mother’s photograph reminded me to steer clear. I think they give these guys some sort of training to just hover around the vicinity and then attack when the spoon reaches the mouth. I’d just popped in a baby potato and looking very idli-in-mouth-like-mother-ish when this guy came to click my photo.

I mean I can only classify it as bizarre I suppose. I burst out laughing with the potato in my mouth and covered my face in glee that I denied the guy the chance of his lifetime. Ha! and Ha! again! He did not take to this kindly, and used zoom lens instead to get a ghastly close-up picture of me making me look like two me-s, but it was better than what the potato would have done. To that I am grateful.