A Sister's "Love" :-\

Its amazing how much my sister loves me!!

Its astounding how irritating elder sisters can be

Its puzzling why parents cant stop with just one child. the YOUNGER one!! (errr. i know this makes no sense!! but whatever!!)

Sample this conversation bewteen my sis (who is currently in India visiting my parents) and me the other day

Pardon all the hindi. Since my sis and i talk only in hindi it made more sense to write the post in hindi!! :)

Tring Tring

Preethi: Haan bol.

Me: Mai hoon.

Preethi: pata hai. Kya hai? (in the most disinterested voice)

M: amma ko phone de

P: Pehle bata kya hai. kyun phone kiya??

M: (voice going up 2 decibels and accquiring a threatening tone): Amma ko phone de

P: Nahi. She is busy

M: mujhe baat karni hai. its urgent. phone de!!!!

P: Then tell me. Anyway she is busy making pakodas for me

M: pakode????? kameeni!!

P: ha ha. yeah. and mom just told me that the pakode she made now are wayyyyyyy better than the pakode she made when u came

M: u LIAR. she so did not say that.

P: math maan. mujhe kya hai. mai to pakode kha rahi hoon. tu kya kar rahi hai? Office mein hai? ha ha ha. Aur haan. Aaj raat ko aloo ke paranthe ban rahein hai aur hum sab raat ko movie ja rahein hai. Uske baad thodi daer park mein baith ke baatein karenge. tu office mein kaam kar theek hai?? Soooooonu! (this is what my sister calls me. An irritating name which i completely completely hate!!Sigh!! this name was the darkest and deepest secret of my life and now its out there!! :( )

M: Mera naam Soonu nahi hai.

P: Soonu Soonu Soonu Soonu Soonu Soonu

(Yes!! My sister is 26, married and supposedly holds a very "high" position in Satyam. Her brains however stopped growing when she was 4)

M: (bellowing now): Amma ko PHONE de kameeeeeeni!!

P: ha ha ha ha. Bye Soooooonu!!!

(Click)

M: sputtering and gasping incoherently at a dead line!!

Sigh!!! Elder Sisters. One breed of humans i want to send to the moon when the first flight of chandrayaan leaves this planet carrying humans!!

BAH!!! :-\

Lessons learnt by Revathi Ramanan in the last one week!!

1. Never ever ever again waste money (however little it is) by buying any book written by chetan bhagat. I picked up three mistakes of my life and I can write a book with the same title the three mistakes of my life being

1. Five point someone

2. One night at the call center

3. Three mistakes of my life

Ok!! Five point someone wasn’t all that bad but the other two books!! Saaaaaaaaaad!! Someone please ask Chetan Bhagat to stop writing. Buying this guys books is like watching a karan johar movie. U know its gonna be bad but u still go ahead and read the book and watch the movie for reasons known to no one. Next time Mr.Bhagat decides to write a book and I like a fool decide to buy it again and write a post on how sad it was please feel free to get in touch with me and kill me. I would be very grateful to you.

2. Moto L6 when dropped from the fourth floor of an apartment is shattered into approximately 47 different pieces. This has been tested and proved by the author. :(.
Yep!! I accidentally dropped my cell into the lift of our building while attempting to close it. I had to then call the watchman and ask him to open the lift, jump down into the shaft and retrieve my sim card. My cell was beyond repair and I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of my cell’s display and paste it here so you could see how I had tortured the fellow. I am now using my friend’s nokia 1600. May my moto’s soul rest in peace. Anyway with my cell gone I have lost all my contacts so if you figured in my contact list please do send me a message letting me know your number.

3. if u work in an IT company you would have come across the automatic doors which have sensors of some kind and open and close when the detect any movement around them. The lesson I learnt last week was that these doors can detect movements only when some one approaches the doors and not when someone stands right between the two doors. Here’s what happened to me last week. As I approached the doors, they opened and just when I was about to cross them my shoe strap snapped and I stood there in between the two doors trying to fix it. And suddenly I felt someone pushing me and when I turned around I was shocked to see that the doors were closing in on me and there I was caught like a little rat between the doors squealing for help. And then a good Samaritan came and the doors opened. It was such an embarrassing situation. So all u designers of automatic doors please make the doors intelligent enough to detect the presence of someone between them also

4. when your sister who recently moved to dubai calls u and starts crying DO NOT assume that she is crying because she is missing you. This was the conversation between my sis and me last week
Preethi: sob sob!! Sniff sniff!! Shruthiiiii
Me: (acting all smug thinking she is crying because she is missing me): what is it Preethi?
Preethi: Shruthi can u believe it? They give milk in bottles here and not in packets like in India. Who gives milk in bottles??? Waaah waaah
Me: (rolling my eyes and thinking)Sheeeesh!!! So much for missing me!!

Jokes apart i do miss her!! :(

In Happier Times - yeah!! the person with the idli like face on the left is my sis and the person on right who looks like she is the brand ambassador for anchor white is yours truly!! :) . This is one of my favorite pics taken when we went to Kabini some time last year!! beautiful place, lovely memories!!

5. Distance DOES the make the heart grow fonder. My sister and BIL when they were here wouldn’t trust me with a saefty pin at their place and now my BIL has gone as far as giving me his hardly used almost new 8 Gb Ipod nano saying he anyway doesn’t have time to listen to it and figured I would be the best person to make good use of it. You are now reading the blog of the proud owner of an 8 GB ipod nano. :). Sigh!! Is it possible to die out of happiness?? If yes then I would have died long ago!! Thanks guys!! (hey Milinta u dawg. i wrote this post before i read ur vile comment on my last post!! :P See even i can be grateful!! ;))

Of relocating sisters and brothers in law

Ye gads. don’t ever give anyone elder sisters and even if u do give people elder sisters don’t get them married to men who get settled in countries other than India. Before u guys go "Sheesh here she goes again, being all senti about her sister going to Dubai" let me assure you that this is not a senti post. If my sister and BIL wish to settle down in Dubai they can do so by all means and I am no one to stop them. but over the last weekend I have been helping my sis clean out her house, pack everything and decide which stuff to send to Dubai and which stuff to leave here in Chennai, which to dispose of etc and god damn it!!! her house is like an akshya pathram (for the uninitiated the akshay pathram was a vessel which krishna gave draupadi, a vessel which would never run out of food and the emptier it became the fuller it really was). Well as I was saying her house is like akshay pathram. The more u empty it, the more u un earth. Archaeologists would have had an easier time unearthing the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations compared to the stuff we unearthed at Preethi's place.

It was amazing how each and every shelf in her house had something and she has been married only for two years. She has 3 pressure cookers, some 100 odd pieces of crockery, 6-7 mud pots, a million small wall hangings, a thousand medium sized wall hangings, a hundred large wall hangings (all of which she packed to take to Dubai!! :-\) And the number of vessels she has!!!! Phew!! The whole continent of Australia could have used my sister’s vessels alone to cook and lead a comfortable life. I was left to worry that if my parents had given all the vessels to my sister, what WOULD be left to give me when I got married. :P. (ok!! I don’t want to hear anyone saying “given your sad cooking (s)kills you would do well to hunt food and eat raw meat rather than using vessels to cook”). Anyway she packed all the vessels she could lay her hands on, she packed all the curtains and even the curtain rods (which she later did not take after we told her that the person who would occupy the house next wouldn’t mind a little privacy and would appreciate it if we left the curtain rods for him to hang curtains on, she packed so many clothes that I decided it is only because of people like my sister that people like Pamela Anderson and mallika sherawat have nothing to wear. I mean what would poor mallika do if she discovered that every time she visited a shop my sister had reached ahead of her and bought everything in the entire shop? Poor thing. No wonder she wears only rags.

And worse was the way my sister wanted to take everything to Dubai. I mean she wanted to take the fridge, the washing machine, the cupboard and have them transported via cargo to Dubai. she would look at everything and go "Awwwwwwwwww, amma gave this to me when I got married" looking at the washing machine or "Paati gave that to me when I got married" looking at the fridge or "I can’t possibly leave this here and go. Our neighbors neighbors daughter in surat gave it to me when I got married" and my BIL would growl saying "Grrrrrr. your neighbors neighbors daughter gave u a mud pot. We get mud pots in Dubai. We are leaving it here and going. period" and then there would be a huge fight between them with Preethi wanting to take the "oh-so-beautiful-but-heavy idol of Shiva which my aunt gave" and the "I-hardly-use-it-but-I-have-emotional-attachments-to-it pressure cooker" (errr yeah. when Preethi was in class 9th amma wrote an essay for her on renewable sources of energy and she won the first prize in the whole of Gujarat state for that essay. and the prize was a 2 liter pressure cooker!! lol!! :D) and my BIL would patiently re-iterate the fact that Dubai was a moderately well developed place and that people there did not hunt for food or wear leaves for clothes and hence had seen and used a pressure cooker and would definitely have cookers in the markets.

My sister though refused to believe this and put the pressure cooker along with the gasket and the weight into her suitcase when my BIL wasn’t looking. Needless to say my BIL wasn’t very pleased when my sis had to pay something close to 3000 bucks on extra baggage at the airport.

A major part of the packing was done when my BIL was already away in Dubai and during the course of relocating my sister has thrown away everything my BIL considered important and retained everything she considers important and my BIL considers worthless. Now that they are alone I shudder to think of the sparks which will fly because my sister and BIL agree on nothing. And all these days I was the peacemaker when they decided to have a go at each other fighting over trivial things like “u left the wet towel on the bed” or “damn!! U used today’s newspaper clean the kitchen now what will I read?” and I would act peacemaker by reminding them of their love for each other more important than wet towels and dirty newspapers. Now in Dubai they will be alone doing all the unpacking and I am afraid the Dubai government will imprison them for excessive domestic violence and for meting out untold atrocities on each other.

Anyway now with my sister gone, though a part of me is feeling sad a major part of me is relieved that I don’t have to go through the whole “Preethi can I throw this throw this handle less coffee mug” and hear her go “noooooo!! I can use that to keep a money plant in the kitchen when I go to Dubai” routine. I guess like my mother she will keep accumulating things over a period of 20 years and I am sure one day my niece/ nephew will be writing about how their mother annoys them with her spring cleaning!!! ;)

Of Sisters and Brothers in law who love to feed me!! :P

I am dreading going to my sisters place nowadays. Why you ask? Well let me explain. Now I have relatives all over Chennai. Like I was telling a friend of mine the other day, if u stumble and fall in Chennai you will either fall over a software professional or a member of the natraja iyer or gopalakrishna iyer family. Name the place in Chennai and I have relatives there. Thiruvanmiyur - Yes, mandaveli – Yes, T.Nagar – Yes, Adyar- infested, velacherry- Yup, kodambakkam – oh yeah, besant nagar – yeah. You get the drift? And all the members of the natraja iyer and gopalakrishna iyer families have one thing I common. They love to feed people. All of them have two passions in life. To eat and to feed. Which is why I avoid going to their houses because all of them love me and the amount of food they give me is directly proportional to their love and the amount of food I eat is proportional to my size.

For example lets take my grandmother. My grandmother spends all her waking hours deciding what to cook. The minute she finishes making lunch her concern is “Tiffin ku enna pannalam”? The minute the tiffin menu is decided it becomes “rathri yenna pannalam”. It’s a long vicious cycle. My grandmother thinks that every problem in life can find its roots to food. She believes that if hunger is wiped out in this world all the problems would disappear. If given a chance she would probably call osama bin laden home for lunch and feed him because I am sure she thinks he goes around bombing world trade centers because he is hungry. I am serious. There are times when I am really angry/sad/pissed about something and she goes “pasi naala dhaan unnaku kovam varadhu. Iru thayir sadam kudukaren” (you are angry coz u r hungry. Wait I will get some curd rice for u). anyway she is a darling and her food would give the best chefs in this world a run for their money and I don’t complain and if u look at me u will realize that I have done more of eating than complaining.:P

Anyway after my sister got married I decided I would give her and her husband (lets call him K) the pleasure of having my company. I had my own ulterior motives. I knew that if I had to reduce weight it wouldn’t help if I went to any of my other umpteen relatives’ place. My sister I decided wouldn’t be that great a cook (Big Mistake on my part) and hence my decision to grace their house with my presence. Coming to the essence of this post I have decided to stop visiting my sister’s place because she has started proving it is the blood of natraja iyer and gopalakrishna iyer that runs in her veins. And as if that’s not enough she has also started influencing K. Not only has she started cooking well but she has also donned role of a mother hen whose sole purpose in life is to feed. My sister and BIL do not have any children yet and they seem to be practicing with me. “Feed your sister and u will feed ur children well” seems to be their motto. With 0 exaggeration (stop rolling ur eyes!!) this is what happens everyday when I visit them

8.00 in the morning

K: hey shruthi. What do u want for breakfast?
Me: Errr.. I think I ll just grab something in office
Sis: no no. I know u wont eat anything. I will make some oats for you

Now there is nothing in this world I detest more than oats because 1. it is healthy and 2. it is white (I hate all white things. Milk, oats, vanilla ice cream etc)

Me: Please no.!!
K: nothing doing. Oats it is. And u must have lots of fruits along with it.
Me: hmmm can I just have the fruits alone
Sis: oats will help u lower ur cholesterol, prevent diabetes, blah blah

She will make a very good mother and will make some poor kid’s life hell I decide.

Me: ok. But just make me a little.

After some time my sis comes carrying this 2 litre vessel full of oats and places it before me
Me: Hmmm. U guys take ur share. I ll eat the rest
Sis: (giving me a puzzled look): our share?? THIS is ur share. Ours is in the kitchen!!
Me: What??????????? You expect me to eat this huuuuuuge bowl full of oats? What do u take me for?? A pregnant elephant who needs her nutrients???
K: hey wait!! I haven’t added the fruits yet.
Me: (voice sharp with sarcasm which is wasted on K of course): only apples? U don’t have oranges or bananas??
K: oh yeah we do. We even have pomegranates.

"Just wait" he says and cuts half a banana, half an apple, half an orange and half a pomegranate and empties into the bottomless chasm also called a bowl of oats. And after that both of them hovered over me till I finished (yeah!! I did finish. I couldn’t flush it into the loo with both of them watching and fussing over me) the entire bowl.
The same procedure was followed for lunch and dinner where for lunch a plate full of bisibelebath (it could easily have been used to feed 5 children for 2 days in Somalia.) + curd rice was forcefully shoved down my gullet by a very loving sister and BIL and for dinner I was again lovingly fed 5 aloo paranthas (no kidding!!) with curd and after that my sister complained that I wasn’t eating what she cooked and being disrespectful. At this statement of hers I was even afraid to stare open mouthed for fear of the fact that they might push some food down my open mouth thinking I am hungry.

So there you go. I have decided that I must make my visits to my sisters place infrequent if I am to keep alive my hopes of reducing my weight.

P.S: Preethi and Kishore – if u guys are reading this u KNOW how shameless I am. U KNOW that tomorrow this time I will probably be at home telling u guys that I am hungry and want food. So though I KNOW you guys wont mind me writing this post, this is just to tell u that u guys are the best!!Love ya!! Muah.:) . and before they throw me out of blogger for such obscene public display of affection I will stop this post!!! :)