Tag: grandparents

🐳 Whale Grandma or Toucan Grandma? 🦜

I showed the son a text message capturing a conversation between his cousin and his grandfather, Balu Thaatha. Balu Thaatha has the unique capacity to morph into a 5/10/20/60/80 year old depending on his audience’s mental acuities and potential for mischief making and taking.

“I found your Hero pen – therefore, I am a hero.”

“Thaatha! You are just a zero, not a hero!”

I felt for the old man.

“Serves Thaatha right!” said the son rolling his eyes. 

“Why?! Poor man is not a zero! Though without zero, civilization will be a zero.” I mused and the son laughed.

“True! True! I meant – serves him right to be at the receiving end of this. He thinks he is Dr Seuss amma. He told me the other day that if I eat jhangri, I will not be angry, as when you are hungry you get angry! What even is Jhangri?” said the fellow.

“Diabetes in squiggles!” I said and the pair of us guffawed. 

Later that day, we were going through the book, Grandude – by Paul McCartney. The Beatles star is quite obviously a fun and dedicated grand-father (grandude) and his book outlines the adventures he has with his grandchildren in their quest to find their grandmother, nan-dude.

We fell to discussing the son’s own wonderful grandfathers again: Raju Thaatha & Balu Thaatha. Both loving in their own ways, and exhibiting a pick-and-choose of characteristics between them: sincere, playful, caring, hearty, engaging, mischievous,  witty, booming, quiet, talkative, reserved, humourous, erudite, and so many more.

“You will be a wonderful grandma – like a pirate grandma or a nan-dude!”, the son assured me. 

I glowed – and said, “Really? Would I be a ninja grandma or a butterfly grandma?”

“Yes – and also a toucan grandma, and a whale grandma, and a tree grandma. You will be a fun grandma. Don’t worry – I have confidence in you. “ said the son. He was licking an ice cream with obvious relish, and no doubt the fact that he was allowed ice cream on a cold day by his indulgent mother colored his opinion of me. 

“Marvelous books, isn’t it? Really – I am glad there are books outlining the special grandparents-grandchildren bond. I wonder whether there are good songs, and dances showing that.”

“I am sure there are. Just need to look.” he said stoic as ever. 

We were discussing the books: 

Both books are such joys to thumb through. Light-hearted and joyous, they highlight the beautiful bonds between grandchildren and grandparents.

The Grandparents Party

I wonder whether you would garner any praise if you walked into your next important meeting, say a board of governors meeting, and showed everyone your perfectly tied shoelace. Unless your product pitch requires a nifty lace to be tied. I don’t see the b.o.g-s typing themselves up in knots because you put on your own shoes.

Even better, I wonder what they would think if you walked up to them and showed them how you put your right shoe on your left foot and your left shoe in your right foot. Depending on how well liked you are, I suspect some sympathetic mumbling and secret plans to find the next person to succeed you.

Anyway, I digress.

Every day for a month, the son would get up, wish us a brisk good morning, run and pick up a pen and then circle the day off in the calendar. When I noticed this sense of urgency and purpose I chalked it down to one of the many useless things the daughter makes him do. And it was. There is a look of reverence associated with any task entrusted to him by his older sister. She told him to circle off every day in the calendar, telling him to count down to the number of days left for his grandparents to arrive.

gp

The result of all this hard work is that the days passed and the grandparents arrived. Between the excited grandchildren and the excited grandparents, the roof is developing cracks in the plaster and all is well.

The son has never been one of those children who mumble and fumble causing you to stop mid-stride and ask, “What did you say? Speak up boy!” He addresses you with a voice meant to carry a school assembly without a mike even if you are only a few feet away. A fact that gives his like-throated maternal grandfather no end of joy. The old father has in fact carried school assemblies without a mike.

Anyway, what struck me observing grandparents and grandchildren is that we would all have excellent grades and reviews if our grandparents were our professors, managers and board of governors. I mean study the facts:

I caught them the other day absolutely beaming with pride and throwing loving glances at their grandson because he put on his shoes and socks by himself.

Then another day, they chuckled fondly at the fact that the son puts his left shoe on his right foot and vice-versa.

Not what the b-o-g-s in Paragraph 2 would do in other words.

I read somewhere that if we lived the other way around, i.e. started out as jaded old folk, then grew into the adult working life, and wound up as children, life would be happier and I cannot but agree. I would like to be congratulated for wearing the right pair of shoes on the wrong feet.

Stringing a Guitar with Green Beans

I coast along and then I suddenly realize that my cooking has reached an all time low. This usually coincides with either the parents or the parents-in-law leaving our home and going  back to India.  Some friends I know tell me they are quite possessive about the kitchen. Not me. When the mothers come and start looking comfortable in the kitchen, that is when I gracefully bow out and let the matriarchs reign. I am not mean: I simply let them do what makes them happy viz, deplore how poorly children eat, and tell me how I must learn how to mix food the same way that our Great Aunt on the Mother’s side used to. I smile, dodge, and mostly hover around the edges, doing the side-cleaning, verandah maintenance and the like.

Obviously, it is with trepidation that I don my chef’s hat again. This time, I decided to undertake foreign cuisines in the first week. I tell the husband that it is because we have been gorging on Indian cuisine long enough, but the truth is that my shortcomings in the Indian cuisine department will be more forcefully brought to light given the recency of the mother’s cooking.

I rummaged through the cupboards and dug out Chinese Manchurian Noodles. That sounded nice. So, I started to make it. I rattled the pots and needled the frozen and sang to the vegetables to cut to my tune. The problem was that the cooking was done before I started the second line of my vegetable song. The Chinese Manchurian Noodles turned out to be a different name on an Instant-Noodles-type-of-packet. The whole thing was over in two minutes flat. I had planned a 5 minute sequence, and I did not notice the noodles was done and let the thing go on a bit. 

Overcooking instant noodles brings about a unique texture : it still looks like noodles, but feels like glue and looks like ripped out shards of faded cardboard paper.

I took a sorry look at the mess I had made with 2-minute noodles and decided that what was needed to be done to bring up the bar once again was to make sesame-green-bean. It might have tasted all right if the beans had been edible. It turns out I had a stringy set that would have made great guitar strings, but poor sesame-green-beans. Also, around the time I put the sesame seeds in the oil, I went off to answer the phone and came back to find the sesame seeds an elephant-gray in color. Never one to give up, I threw the beans in and sautéed till they could be sautéed no more.

Cooking
String the guitar with my beans

The family usually has a quip ready the day after the grand-parents of the house leave, but this time I left them tongue-tied with my noodles.  Anything that they wanted to say as an after-thought was dealt with firmly by the string beans.

Like the daughter said, “You can’t even joke about this Amma, it is that bad.”

PS: Tomorrow is Italian Cuisine (one can’t go wrong with a simple pasta and soup can one?)