Independence Day

My rice-eating, coffee-drinking, sleep-at-9-wake-up-at-6 mum, who until a point in her life thought Madurai was the farthest point on earth that human beings could travel to, visited me earlier this month. Given the short notice of her trip, she did not have enough time to see enough star movies to perk up her English. So she paid for my sister's expenses and brought her along.

'Mum, you could have brought dad along'
'I could have. But what will I do if someone talks to me in the washroom. Though your dad would have loved to take a peek into the ladies room, I am not sure I will approve of it. And so I chose your sister. We have paid so much of money to get her to college and we should be able to extract at least something out of her, shouldn't we?'
'But, is it fair to dad?'
'I was fair. I extended him an invitation as long as he was ready to manage his own expenses.'

And so my mum and sis came to the UK.

Ever since there has been some sun here, there has been a flurry of Indian mums visiting sons in the UK. And mums always looked the same. They went around draped in their sarees and their best necklaces, packed lunches wherever they went, never spoke to anyone non-Indian, became experts in multiplication table 8 as they converted every pound they spent to rupees and mentally made notes to get their sons married as quickly as possible to avoid the risk of short skirted English women preying on their sons. I expected my mum to do the same. No offense, it is just natural isn't it. So as a precaution, I warned friends coming home for free food not to bring free drinks. But; I was in for a big surprise.

In just about a week, while I cooked for them at home, they painted the town red in the trendiest of skirts, drank £5 coffees at breakfast, 10, lunch, 4 and dinner, ate with knifes and forks, sipped coke after meals and managed intriguing conversations with complete strangers. They impressed upon so much that shop keepers gave them gifts for free, guides took extra time to explain the merciless and brutal annals of English history, waiters helped pick from the choice of menus and passer-bys guided them to places to where they knew the route already.

There is only one person I have ever known who could manage to do all that and still walk around nonchalantly - My grandma. I wonder if my mum took quick lessons from her mother-in-law just before she left.

My grandmother can hardly read or write. But take her to an expensive hotel, she will seat herself in the lounge, pick up an English (only English) newspaper and skim through for 15 minutes and tell you all the 'stories' of the day for the next 30 minutes. She has this innate ability of transforming pictures to stories, which is well complemented by her expansive knowledge of all Indian and American politicians and their life histories. While most of her friends inked their thumbs for signatures, she trained herself to hold a ball-point pen. She taught herself just what was necessary. You talk to her in English, she will juggle around with the 13 English words that she knows and trick you into believing she has a masters in the language. My uncle took her on a plane for the first time recently and unlike many people who have nervous jitters she carried herself very well that all she could come up with was ask the air-hostess if she could have the window seat. Give her a chop-stick, she will look at you eat and learn to do just the same before you realise she is using you as her teacher. She tips workers, gifts grand-kids, still goes out with her friends, demands her allowance and above all that carries herself like no one I have ever seen.

I was happy for my mum to have inherited a lot from her mother-in-law. I had my own fringe benefits. But everything comes at a cost. And entertaining two women is not very cheap. I spent my month's wages in the two weeks they stayed with me. But I still enjoyed their company. So please believe me when I say it was only coincidence and that I did not have any ulterior motives when I waved them good bye at the airport on the Independence day.

Unrelated post-airport Independence day event: On seeing the number of Independence day related scribblings on facebook, I decided to do my bit on that day. So I went up to the national flag that hangs in my room, saluted at it and tried to sing the national anthem. Miserably for me, I had to hum a couple of lines in between. That is what happens when you are not the tallest in your 5th standard class but still stand at the back for the school assembly and hum at long-legged 8th standard beauties while the national anthem is on.