Wicked wicked ways

Moral dilemmas
Sivan Kutty, of 75 years of age lives, in Hyderabad. He is a retired man and spends his wakeful hours adding up the income from his various investments, and doing a five-kilometer sprightly walk followed by a short jog, to keep the heart pumping and the arteries clean. At sundown he sits before the TV with a carefully measured glass of Scotch whisky (it has been said of him that his price is but a bottle of IMFL), getting up only once to serve himself a treasured second drink. All through his life he has lived apart from his extended family, only on rare occasions meeting any member of the family. It is during these moments that his eyes become glassy, mulling over his achievements and failures of the past and often faced with a moral dilemma, whether to get into the act and save the souls of his wayward relatives of the younger generation or not? Some times these thoughts become too strong for him to dismiss them lightly and cause another dilemma, whether to pour out another valuable drink or not? But soon his accountant’s instinct tells him what it would cost and he dismisses the rabid idea and walks off to the dinner table.

Sivan Kutty was an accountant for 30 years in a British company. He joined the company in his early twenties, after failing to qualify as a chartered accountant in UK. He married a Scottish girl in UK and moved to India in early sixties to work as an accountant in the company’s Hyderabad plant. In the early days life was a struggle for him, having produced two children in quick succession and needing to maintain the wife of foreign origin. Life being such a struggle, he firmly declined when his mother asked him to send her a few hundred rupees for her maintenance every month (his mother, a wealthy woman, was now a little short of money as she had divided and given all her family money away to her children – Sivan Kutty and his siblings, of which you are to meet the sisters Janu and Sita soon).

Being free of such encumbrances, Sivan Kutty worked steadily and cultivated influential people for which his wife of foreign origin was an asset. Being an accountant he knew very well that a price has to be paid for every gain. If you knew the price and prepared to pay it, yes the gain is yours! In those days there was no moral dilemma! And Sivan Kutty crawled steadily up the corporate ladder to become a director by the time he retired with a comfortable savings and retirement benefits.

One day, his family ties got the better of his usual thrift and Sivan Kutty decided to have a third drink and also made the momentous decision to save the souls of his wayward younger generation and dialed the number of his dear sister Sita (who he had hated for many years but had now become an asset on his moral balance sheet) in Chennai. Sivan Kutty announced the decision to Save the life of their elder sister Janu who was living with her son Venu in Coimbatore………. Of Janu’s daughter Parvathy and her relatives I have written in one of my earlier posting “Bitching! Bitching!! All the way!”

Janu, Parvathy’s mother, is 85 years old, and was widowed over 30 years ago. She has lived the best part of these 30years with Parvathy in Mumbai or Venu in Coimbatore, as she felt unable to live on her own. The family property was sold and unlike Janu and her siblings, who had taken their individual shares from their widowed mother without a pang of regret, Parvathy and her brothers invested their shares of the family property for Janu’s use. Because of Parvathy’s thrift and resourcefulness Janu’s investments had grown sizeable in 30 years.

For Janu is lavish in her ways, being the daughter of a wealthy man and then the wife of a wealthy man. Janu is also easy to manipulate and financially illiterate. Despite this, Janu has been able to live a fairly lavish life as a widow, because she has lived with and been supported by her daughter or son, spending the income from the family property mostly on her lavish ways.

This situation has caused a dilemma for Janu’s sister Sita who I have in my earlier post referred to as Parvathy’s “wicked aunty.” Sita, who is also lavish like her sister, has frittered away her share of the family property, and continues to live lavishly on the largesse of her long-suffering sons.

But Sita thought that it was her bounden duty to enquire about (or interfere with) the welfare of her widowed sister and put several questions to Janu – innocent talk at first, acknowledging her good fortune to have such good daughter and son and daughter-in-law. Over a period of time, Sita’s questions became loaded, giving hints to Janu that she could certainly lead a better life (like herself) and not be a slave of her children (who ensured that Janu did not fritter away the family money like Sita had done). She incited Janu to take charge of her own affairs and handle her financial matters herself.

Slowly Janu, whose intelligence was below average even in her youth started to believe that her Daughter-in-law was not giving enough respect and attention. She became moody and querulous often and causing strained relationship with her son Venu, d-in-law, their children and Parvathy too. Parvathy always sympathized with Venu and his wife who were doing their utmost to make Janu’s life as comfortable as possible but Janu remained disgruntled all the time. Cunningly incited by Sita, Janu started attacking her son and d-in-law and daughter Parvathy too.

A little history first. Though it was very difficult for Parvathy to accommodate Janu in her small flat in Mumbai, Janu stayed with Parvathy for a good part of the first 15 years after her husband died. After Parvathy’s husband retired from service and her two daughters got married, Parvathy and her husband shifted to a bigger house in Bangalore. Due to health problems and advancing age both Parvathy and her husband were not in a position to keep Janu any more. So Janu has been staying with Venu in Coimbatore for the past 15 years.

Sita had convinced Janu that her daughter will not keep her because her husband may not want her in the house and that earlier they accommodated her in their small flat in Mumbai because they wanted to use her money. Janu was always used to be treated with kid gloves because her late husband was a highly respected person and she basked in his glory. Janu (at 85!) became emboldened by Sita’s machinations to tell her son that she wanted to live separately - which was not feasible, given her meager income and lavish life style.

This was the moment Sita waited for and when Sivan Kutty phoned her from Hyderabad she did a buck and wing and said to herself “Now the fun will start. The waiting was not for nothing!!” Sita immediately phoned Parvathy’s sis-in-law in Singapore (who hated Parvathy from the time Parvathy’s brother married her) and sang to her that the time has come to teach Parvathy a lesson. Soon the plan was unfolded – Janu was to quarrel with Venu and his wife and ask Parvathy to put her up in her house in Bangalore, knowing well that she has expressed her inability to do so.

Next Sivan Kutty and Sita would bring Janu to Bangalore under some pretext and accommodate her in a separate home. Then they would tell Parvathy that it was her moral duty to accommodate her poor mother who was living alone and Parvathy (worried about what others would say) would be forced to take her in. If Parvathy refused, they would ask her to transfer the capital amount of the family money which was held in trust by Parvathy to Janu under the pretext that Janu needed the money to run her separate house. Then it was just a matter of time before they could prey on simpleton Janu and scoot with the money!

A grand plan, but Parvathy stood strong and asked Sivan Kutty and others who engineered the whole plan to go to hell and look after her themselves. They threatened Parvathy with legal action to get the money from her. Parvathy did not budge. Nothing happened. By then, Sivan Kutty and Sita were getting fed up with Janu’s constant complaints and lavish ways. Quickly they took Janu back to Venu’s house in Coimbatore.

Moral of the story is that when you do not have any morals to speak of, you should not preach. Neither Sivan Kutty nor Sita ever bothered to look after their parents in their old age when they were in need and suffering but they had to preach ‘duty’ and ‘moral obligations’ to Parvathy who without anyone’s prompting had done her duties by her parents and others. But when pushed to a corner by scheming relatives she stood by her convictions daring them to take whatever action they wanted to take, and not buckling under pressure or threats.

Love and respect are not commodities that one can demand from others as a matter of right. Sometimes you earn it through hard selfless work. For some, by way of their personality and behavior, they simply get it. But if you go to bargain for it or argue about it what you get in the end would be the spurious stuff. There was a time when youngsters respected their elders – anyway, that is what the older generation keep reminding the youngsters all the time – but in those days too there were kings who imprisoned their fathers and elders, gouged their eyes, chained and beaten them etc for the sake of gaining the kingdom! But now ill-treatment of elders must have become rampant that the Government has to step in and bring in laws to protect the rights of the elders. Now with the new laws in place, smart aleck youngsters can no longer throw out their parents to fend for themselves in their old age. The intentions are good but how far the laws would benefit the senior citizen is to be seen yet. There are laws to protect women from harassment by the husband and his relatives for dowry etc, but they have made little difference to women. On the other hand there are many cases where the husband and his parents are harassed by scheming women out to take revenge on the Male species.

One should not take the senior citizen’s protection law (if that is the name given to it) too seriously and go on demanding more and more from the younger generation. Leave the young ones alone because they have to cope with a lot more stresses of the present day life style, than you ever had. What the older generation has to learn is to discard desires and expectations. Well then that is another discussion which will go on endlessly!!

Alamelu Ammal aged 82, traveled alone from the US and arrived at the new Bengaluru airport around 9 AM in the morning. Though her son living in Chicago had given detailed instructions to her on how to go about the new airport, the long flight played hide and seek with her memory and she was nonplussed and disoriented. She decided to wait for her son to come and pick her up from the air port and she sat on a comfortable chair and went to sleep! Deep sleep!

She woke up around 2 PM and went into a flutter. She thought that she was in Singapore air port and panicked. Some one helped her to call her son in US and talk to him. He told her to take a pre-paid taxi to go to the city.  The taxi left her at her apartment but she could not open the front door and therefore sat on the stair case for a breather. Again she dozed off until someone tapped on her shoulder and woke her up. She started asking for her son who, she thought accompanied her from US. She told the stranger that she took a taxi from Singapore airport and paid $600/- taxi fare. The stranger somehow opened the door for her and she went inside dragging the baggage. She could not stay inside for long because the apartment was locked for over six months and she could not stand the stink of dead rats in the house.  

The problem with Alamelu Ammal was that in her old age she had become crabbed. She was a widow for more than 18 years and living a frugal life on her husband's pension, when suddenly fortune smiled on her.  She sold her small plot of land with the shabby old house for about thirty million Rupees and that turned her life upside down. The sudden wealth made her insecure and crabbed. She thought that all her children and other relatives were after her money and became very quarrelsome with them. She went to US to live with her son but could not stand her daughter-in-law. So she fought with her and took a flight back to Bangalore within six months. In her old age she wanted all that she was not able to afford when she was young. She bought a diamond necklace for about one and a half million. She went on a spree of buying Kancheepuram silk sarees and expensive dresses which no one would wear at her age. She would eat all kinds of food from restaurants and become sick and so on. All in the hope of finding happiness! Because of her insecurity and suspicion of others she did not have any friends and even her close relatives shunned her!!

This is the case with many senior citizens today. Parvathy’s wicked aunt (about whom I have written in my earlier posting “Bitching, bitching all the way.”) is nearly 80 years old and she is on a binge. She is wicked and jealous of any one and every one including Parvathy. In her old age she has made her sons buy a luxurious house for her in Kerala which she has furnished and refurnished at least four times in the past eight years, each time after seeing some one else’s house better furnished! She wears padded bras and goes to the beauticians for facials. Till the age of almost seventy years she never went to a beautician or wore luxurious dresses including padded bras!! Though by nature she was wicked even during her youth, she has become more so in her old age. She caused rift between Parvathy and her brother by joining hands with Parvathy’s sister-in-law, who is even more evil than the aunt and was a sworn enemy of Parvathy from very beginning! Parvathy’s mother has also come under the influence of the wicked aunty who has fed her all kinds of wrong ideas about how to deal with sons and daughter and caused differences between Parvathy and her mother (86 years old) and spread all kinds of canard against Parvathy! It is beyond the imagination of all those who knew Parvathy that the very relatives for whom she has slogged for many years would turn to be serpents – her mother, her younger brother and his wife, and the wicked aunty!  

This is what happens when old people become power crazy and ambitious and wicked!! We hear so much about the large youth population in the country but very soon the oldies will out number the youth!! Already several brands of incontinence diapers and old age accessories are filling the shelves of super markets!!

In the nineteen sixties four figure salary was something every young man dreamed about. A starting salary of Rupees two hundred to four hundred per month used to be the norm depending on qualifications and luck. And it was a great achievement if one reached a four figure salary before thirty years of age. Matrimonial advertisements gave special mention of “four figure salary”. In those days it was just enough to mention the word “four figure salary”, and clarifications were never sought for because the expectation is never much more than the minimum of the range, for an eligible young bachelor!! The “K” word was not in vogue because of the limited scope of application in such circumstances! Much water has passed under the bridge after those days! Today it is indecent to mention a salary less than 100K per month!! What a change, my God!

My daughters exchange glances and suppress giggles when I talk about the “Liberty” shirt I bought for Rs.25/- for my wedding, and the hair cut which cost me just Re.1/-. The best pair of Bata shoes cost only Rs.45/-. And anyone earning income more than Rs.300/- per month paid income tax too! After the 1965 war against Pakistan, the Compulsory Deposit Scheme was also slapped on the poor tax payer!

Buying a car was an event in itself. Car production in India during sixties and seventies was much below demand and there was a waiting period of 3 years for an Ambassador car and over 12 years for a Premier Fiat. Fiat was much in demand especially in Bombay. The price of a new car was about Rs.20000 in early seventies but the premium for ready delivery was almost same amount as the price of the car. First time car buyers usually settled for a used car, cost of which would be about 80% of a new one if it was about 3-4 years old and in good condition. And petrol price was below Re.1/- per liter. But I remember the days when I was just a boy of eight or ten when my father used to fill up his Chevrolet’s tank at about Rs.2/- per gallon!! That is about 40 Paise per liter! I was fascinated to watch the tank being filled because, in those days, petrol pumps were manually operated and one could see the liquid gurgling out and emptying the glass container. Two one-gallon bottles fitted on top of the pump would get alternately filled and contents emptied in to the tank as the operator kept moving a handle to and fro! Quite some physical activity indeed!

Shaving blades were relatively expensive in those days and after each shave it would be carefully wiped of the moisture to avoid rusting because blades were not made of stainless steel as they are now. The blades were used for several shaves and before each shave the edges were sharpened using a rough concave glass surface. There was also a very innovative appliance (manufactured in England) available for sharpening the shaving razor blades. The appliance consisted of a frame and a carriage inside it. The blade is clamped in a holder which is placed inside the carriage. The carriage is moved to and fro within the frame and a whole lot of levers and cams allowed the razor edges to be softly rubbed against a leather-like substance and thus get sharpened. As a young boy, I used to find it a very interesting mechanism and played with it a lot because it was lying idle and no one was using it!

Most young men started smoking at an early age, as soon as they left school and joined college. I used to love the fragrance of tobacco a soon as the seal of a new cigarette tin was opened. And quite early in life I started pinching one or two cigarettes from my father’s 50’s cigarette tin. At the age of 18 I was a regular smoker.
There were no menacing warnings about the health hazards of smoking and no statistics waving Health Ministers going about punishing smokers in public places. In fact smoking was a fashionable habit and youngsters in colleges thought that it attracted attention from the fairer sex. One of the favorite places for indulging in change smoking for students was the cinema halls where smoking was not banned as yet. In Trivandrum, those days first class cinema ticket, equivalent of present day upper stall ticket, cost only 11 Annas (approximately Re.0.69) and a packet of Berkeley Cigarettes cost 5 Annas (Re.0.31). Thus in just one Rupee one could see a movie and smoke 10 cigarettes too!! With another half Rupee one could indulge in sumptuous refreshments too!!

India Coffee House on the Main Road (M.G. Road as it is called today) was a favorite haunt of college students in those days. Groups of students would sit around tables drinking cups of steaming coffee and on rare occasions eating potato chips or vegetable/mutton cutlets, furiously engaged in heated discussions on all subjects under the sun. The din of laughter and talking would sometimes reach such high pitch that the management would request the guests to keep the noise levels low.

In 1950, going to America was a rare event and when my father went to Canada on some fellowship it was a big event for our family and friends. I was about 11 years old and I remember how my mother was so unhappy about the whole matter because of the pending separation for over a year. My uncles and other well wishers consoled her telling her that one year would pass in a jiffy and after all the trip was so very important for my father’s future prospects in his profession.

Those were the days when people’s needs were limited and when my father asked my mother what she wanted him to bring from Canada she simply said that she did not want anything and that she was only looking forward to his return. She would have prayed that her husband should not fall into some white woman’s trap and return with one in his arms! Ever since her elder brother married a lady from Scotland where he went for his studies in Engineering she was suspicious of all women of foreign origin!

My father used to write long letters to my mother and the children, explaining the wonderful sights in Canada and the luxurious lifestyles of ordinary citizens, the beauty of the snow-clad landscapes, how he missed the home food and so on. He sent us a view master with dozens of inserts fitted with films for viewing and ball pens of different colours, which were all novel to us. Knowing that I was crazy about bicycles he wrote to me that he would try and bring one for me if he was able to save enough from his allowance. We children were shocked to learn from his letters how much a cup of tea cost him, and how he decided not to have bed tea, which he was so particular about when he was at home! So I had very little hope that he would be able to save enough to get the bicycle for me!!

About a week before his homecoming, a close friend of my father came and informed my mother that he received a cable from my father saying that he had lost his brief case in a department store in Canada, while shopping for home coming! The bag contained all his savings and even the return air ticket and the passport. In those days it was very difficult to send any money abroad and my mother was in a fix. I do not know the sequence of events, but some how sufficient money was arranged for his return. On his way back to India he had to stop in London for whatever reason I do not know and it was there he managed to buy a brand new Bicycle for me.

The bicycle arrived about six weeks or two months after my father arrived. It was a dazzling Raleigh Sports bicycle with gleaming sports handle bar and cable brakes,areo dynamic front mud-guard 5-speed drive, sparkling rolling bell, Dynamo and light, Etc. etc. A beauty!!
It came in semi knocked down condition and my father assembled it for me. For 10 years I used it, till I left Trivandrum. My father was a simple person and to my knowledge he did not buy anything for himself during his one year stay in Canada. Other than the bicycle for me, he brought hardly anything of much value. It must have been a great sacrifice for him to buy the bicycle for me considering that he was practically penniless when he came to London and had to wait there for few days to receive the money sent from India.

Many years later when I wanted some money for buying an apartment in Bombay, he had no hesitation to give it to me though he did not have a lot to spare. He retired as Chief of a large Govt department and had many friends and some enemies during his working life. All he had when he retired was his Provident Fund savings. During his working life he did not have a bank account. He always stayed in Government quarters or the in the house my mother inherited from her father. He did not acquire any assets or build any house, which most people in similar position would have done. Every month he used to bring his salary home in cash, which he handed over to my mother. I t was entirely up to her how she spent the money. His only indulgence was cigarettes for which he would ask my mother to send the servants to go and bring

My father retired from Govt service in 1967 but even now, 40 years after his retirement, old and new employees of his erstwhile department talk of him with love and respect. His greatest quality as I see was his fearlessness. Whatever he did was out of conviction. He had helped a lot of people to come up in life and there was gratitude for him from a lot of people. His adversaries sometimes called him communal when it suited them but some of his best friends belonged to other communities and castes. When He passed away 23 years ago, lots of people came to the house to pay their respects. One of them was a rich Christian contractor whom my father had helped disregarding protests from many quarters. He could not control his emotions and wept loudly to the amazement of many people who had gathered.

During his service he had sometimes refused to cow tow the political bosses and did only whatever was the right thing to do. Once, a contractor who was very influential in political circles came to see my father with a bag full of one hundred rupees notes for getting a prestigious contract. My father fumed and practically threw him and the bag out of the house and told him never to approach him again. Weeks later a Central Govt Minister approached him on behalf of the contractor but my father did not budge, which caused bad blood between him and the political class.

Immediately after my father retired the contractor made several allegations against my father and he filed a case in the high court against my father for causing loss to him and to the department. My father was unmoved and replied to every allegation in the court and the judge exonerated him and passed severe strictures against the contractor and some others who colluded with him to tarnish the reputation of my father. Those were very difficult and stressful times for my father but he was unmoved and fought to the end.

My mother had inherited some landed properties from her parents. For some years after my father’s retirement he took charge of these properties, which resulted in improved income from them. However, with age he became frail and he found it difficult to cope with the strain and we decided to sell the properties, mainly because all the children who were the heirs to these properties lived outside the State. In order that we get a good price for the land he arranged to develop the land into small plots suitable for building houses with roads, drainage etc. At this point an influential political person who was the head of the Housing Board approached him with an offer to buy the entire property for a price, which was less that 10 percent of its real worth. My father promptly refused the offer but the politician was miffed and he wanted to take revenge. As soon as a few plots were sold, the Housing Board sprang to action. They declared that all our properties and a few small properties adjacent to ours were going to be acquired by the Housing Board and therefore no one should buy these properties. It seemed to be a gone case and we all felt very despondent. However my father filed a writ petition in the High Court to get a reasonable price for the land acquired, based on the market value. The court ordered the Housing Board to give us the market price, which was based on the price of plots sold prior to the take over by the Housing Board. The Board delayed the payments and some officials tried to black mail for bribes. So my father filed a second writ petition and the court ordered immediate payment with interest.

The sales proceeds were given to the children as per their share holdings. He had no interest in the money. But he was not a puritan either. He was very fond of Scotch whisky, which his friends used to supply to him regularly, even long after his retirement. He was a very special person and an unforgettable character for those who were close to him.

Every one in our country is talking about women’s empowerment. It is a subject that is occupying the minds of millions of Indians and everyone jointly let out a sigh of relief when a woman was elected to become the President of India, albeit lot of mud slinging that preceded it!!
The fact remains that at every level women are facing discrimination and it is they who have to make adjustments or compromises to get on in this world. A girl may grow up with equal opportunities and freedom in her parents’ house as the boys enjoy, but she will have to make tremendous efforts to adjust to a life in a different household as soon as she is married.
I was recently listening to a lecture on The Bhagavat Geeta by a well-known Swamiji and he happened to touch on (with some humour) the subject of adjustments one has to make for a peaceful life. After the marriage when a girl goes to the husband’s house her mother would advise her “Darling, from now on you should think that your husband’s house is yours, and his mother also as yours”. This is a fallacy, the Swamiji asserted! If the daughter takes this advice literally, she would land up in trouble! On the other hand if she were advised that she should use all her tact and charm to please the husband and his relatives, and realised that she was in a strange environment (Not necessarily enemy territory), she would have less problems. The Swamiji had some advice for the Mothers-in-law also. He told them not to take for granted that the new bride would immediately adopt the husband’s house as hers and his mother as her own mother!! She should give a long rope and be prepared for adjustments herself! Mothers-in-law are always forgiving their daughters but not their daughters-in-law!
The problem is always between m-in-l and d-in-l, father-in-law rarely comes in the picture. So, most of the problems that women face in life one should think is because of women only. Men are hardly to be blamed! Interestingly anagram for mother-in-law is “Woman Hitler”!!
Take for example the case of Parvathy, whose aunty of 78 years came to town, lugging along her husband of 85 years driving all of 350 kms, to invite some distant relatives for her grand daughter’s wedding, and not visit Parvathy (who is her sister’s daughter) to invite her for the wedding. The reason? To spite Parvathy and show her displeasure!
The aunty is nicknamed the wicked one by all the relatives because of her jealous and wicked nature. The wicked aunty has had a fairly comfortable life all through but she is a very unhappy woman who is discontented with life and always struggling to compete with others. Why did the wicked aunty spite Parvathy? That is a long story and there are wheels and wheels within wheels.
Parvathy’s sister-in-law, from day one after her marriage to Parvathy’s brother left no stones unturned to show that she did not want to be friendly with Parvathy and made that clear to every one by words and deeds! After almost 20 years of keeping up appearances of a friendly relationship with her sis-in-law, Parvathy gave up and cut her off, when things became unbearable. This was the chance for the wicked aunty to befriend the sis-in-law and attack Parvathy.

Twenty years old, a first class graduate in Maths, having scored 100% in Maths Parvathy was a brilliant girl known as such to all her friends and her teachers. She was the pride of her school and college and her parents. She could have got admission to the MSc Maths course in any reputed University but due to family pressures she did not continue her studies, but sat at home waiting for a suitable boy to be chosen by her parents. She was not only very good in Maths, she was extremely good at languages too. Her command over English language written and spoken was superb. She had studied in an English medium school where she did not have to learn the vernacular. When she left school she did not know how to write or read, Malayalam, which is her mother tongue. But after leaving school her parents wanted her to take Malayalam as second language in college, because they felt that knowledge of Malayalam was necessary for her to communicate with the future mother-in-law who in all probability would not be speaking or writing English. From scratch she learned Malayalam and took her BSc degree in Maths with Malayalam as the second language. During the one year after her graduation and before her parents found a suitable boy for her she studied French language and started preparations for appearing for the Civil Service Exams, though it was only a half hearted effort, in case the parents failed to find a suitable boy!

Parvathy was beautiful and fair in complexion and belonged to an upper caste Nair family and her parents or her relatives never thought that there would be any difficulty in finding a suitable boy for her. She was very smart and learned driving at the age of seventeen and she was known as the only woman driver in the small town where she lived with her parents. Forty years ago, there were not many women drivers in Kerala. Parvathy learned driving because of her sheer enthusiasm and support from her father. As a child Parvathy played football and hockey with boys. Her teachers in school and college were full for praise and admiration for her abilities in studies. From early childhood Parvathy loved reading. She had a huge collection of books. She had also received many books as awards for top performance in school and college.

Parvathy grew up in luxury, carefree and happy and had no worries about the future. She and her parents were pretty sure that she would get a very eligible boy as her husband who would look after her. Parents of many boys showed interest in marrying their sons to Parvathy but due to their horoscope not matching with hers many of the proposals were rejected. Then a friend of her parents told them about a boy who was the son of a high ranking retired Government official who was an eligible bachelor employed in a foreign company in Bombay. Her father immediately wrote to the boy’s father and from thereon matters moved pretty fast and Parvathy got married to Vishnu within the next six months.

Vishnu was an average boy with average accomplishments but the fact that he belonged to a very reputed family outweighed all the other considerations, except that their horoscopes also matched well!! In the ordinary circumstances Vishnu’s qualities and accomplishments were far below the standards Parvathy’s parents had in mind and if Parvathy’s parents made detailed enquiries about Vishnu and his past, probably they would not have considered the proposal. However, Vishnu’s parents who first saw Parvathy and her parents were very impressed with Parvathy and her family and they immediately decided that this was the girl for Vishnu and speeded up the process for the marriage. The young Vishnu had a broken engagement only a year or two before and he had a couple of job changes too and he was generally going through a tumultuous period in his young life when Parvathy’s proposal came and his parents pushed it through with speed, lest some one should throw a spanner in the works!

Few days after the marriage Parvathy and Vishnu left for Bombay. Parting from her loving parents and family and starting on a new life with a man whom she hardly knew, was a painful experience but she bore it all very well. Vishnu had rented a one bedroom flat in Bombay, which by Kerala standards was too small for a family but in Bombay it was a luxury because the flat was situated in a very up market locality. Parvathy took to Bombay life with gusto. Before her marriage she never had to travel by buses or go to market for buying vegetables or ironing clothes but she did all these chores and occasionally did cleaning of the house or washing of the clothes when the maid did not turn up. Parvathy did all that without any complaint or grouse. She took charge of the entire household and took great pleasure in doing it. Parvathy used her spare time to go to a near by library and read books by the dozen.

Within about 5 years of her marriage to Vishnu, Parvathy had two daughters and life became more hectic for her. She took lessons in making dresses for the children and became an expert in making beautiful dresses for the children. The children were admitted to one of the best schools in Bombay and Parvathy took great care and interest in bringing up the two daughters. She learned baking delicious cakes and puddings, taking recipes from books borrowed from the libraries. She became a member of the British Council library where she used to spend two or three hours every week reading English newspapers and books on British Royalty!

With two growing up girls, the flat was too small for the family. But Parvathy never complained about the small size of the flat, where she lived the best part of her life looking after the comforts of the husband and the two daughters. Relatives of both Vishnu and Parvathy were visiting them frequently, and when the guests stayed with them, which happened frequently, Parvathy had to sacrifice her personal comforts to see that life went on smoothly. Parvathy used to cook delicious food, deserts and ice creams, which were highly appreciated by all the guests and family members

It was a great shock for Parvathy when her father, who was very close to her, passed away suddenly when she was only 28 years old. It was a great shock for Parvathy’s family because he was a tower of strength for the entire family. Her mother was absolutely incapable of running a household and soon it became necessary for her mother to sell their family house in Kerala and move to Bombay since Parvathy’s two brothers had not settled down properly by that time. Parvathy’s mother was used to a life of luxury from childhood, with servants attending to all her needs and it was difficult for her to adjust to living in a cramped apartment in Bombay. However Parvathy had to sacrifice a lot of comforts so that the children and the husband were not inconvenienced too much. To look after her mother and the little daughters, Parvathy had a living in servant from Kerala for doing all the household chores including cooking. But once the children were grown up and the elder daughter started going to college Parvathy did away with the services of the living in servant mainly due to lack of space in the house.

Unlike Parvathy who had a very sheltered childhood, Vishnu grew up with two brothers and three sisters in a big family with slack discipline and a carefree life style. The traditions and culture of the Malabar region where Parvathy belonged was different from those of the Travancore region of Kerala where her husband Vishnu came from. Even though Malayalam was the language spoken in both regions, the lingo was very different.
With marked differences in the cultures and lifestyles Parvathy had lot of difficulties in adjusting to the ways of Vishnu and his family in the beginning. No one in Parvathy’s family smoked or touched alcohol but Vishnu was practically a chain smoker in the early days of their marriage and loved to drink alcohol! Food habits were also quite different. But Parvathy took it all sportingly without complaints.

Vishnu’s brothers, sisters and brothers-in-law were all regular guests in their house and Parvathy was extremely hospitable to all. Many of Vishnu’s cousins, nephews and nieces were regular guests in Parvathy’s house and Parvathy never grumbled to look after any of them. Vishnu was travelling most of the time and Parvathy had to do everything by herself most of the time. Many times she had to travel long distance to the airport to receive or see off relatives, all by herself.

Her very pleasant nature, efficient working style, organising capacity, enthusiasm, sense of duty and intelligence made her a very special person and endeared her to her m-in-law and f-in-law. Vishnu’s parents loved Parvathy as much as their own their own daughters. After Parvathy’s father passed away and her mother shifted to live with her in Bombay she became closer to Vishnu’s parents. Vishnu’s parents also looked forward to the annual visits of Vishnu and Parvathy with their two daughters on holidays. Parvathy did not seem to regret that life had not been very smooth sailing for her and took great pleasure in all the little enjoyments that came in her way. She did not compare her life with other more fortunate and ostentatious women who took great pleasure in competing with others. She was always grateful that life was not much worse.

Parvarthy’s only regret was that she had gone out of her way to be helpful to others disregarding her own difficulties, but hardly any one showed any understanding of the difficulties she had to suffer. She was particularly sensitive about the fact that her mother had to be put up with her, in the small apartment in Bombay when she had other guest also from her husband’s family. Her wicked aunty was in and out of her house in Bombay all the time but wicked aunty was jealous of her because of Parvathy’s happy disposition. Her brother’s wife and her brother stayed in her house many times but their attitude was that it was her duty to look after their comforts when they visited Bombay. They never felt that there was need to reciprocate and when she once happened to stay with them her sis-in-law behaved in a very unruly manner, which made her decide that she would never again stay with them.

There was no appreciation from any quarters, that she had managed a household in a very efficient manner against many vicissitudes. Parvathy kept her good humour and sanity in the face difficult odds and made a comfortable life for the family and brought up her two daughters admirably and married them off to very eligible young men. She never showed any regret for the things denied to her but enjoyed the most whatever came her way. Unlike Parvathy, her husband Vishnu was not an achiever or ambitious. He was an average person with average achievements, nothing to write home about. But Parvathy never made him feel inferior for his lack of motivation for higher achievements nor complained about the things they did not have. Though she was aware of Vishnu’s limitations she never criticized him about his failures and always projected him as someone with superior faculties and achievements!

One wonders whether Parvathy’s life could be called a success or just a waste of talents and potential for great achievements? On the other hand if she chose to become a career woman instead of a homemaker would that have been a more satisfying life for her? That I think is a hypothetical question and the answer would also be hypothetical!