You should have seen the fuss that my wife made and the tantrums that she threw up when I woke her from a afternoon siesta yesterday and asked for a cup of coffee!
Why she should go ballistic over such a simple request, I could never fathom. It would have taken her hardly a couple of minutes to warm the milk in the gas stove, mix the instant coffee and sugar and serve it to me, along with some chocolate biscuits, as I was on my recliner chair reading a book. Nothing complicated about it. Minimum physical labour involved.
It is not as if she had to slog it out like my multi-tasking grandmother who had to wake up at 3 am everyday, have a cold dip in the Cauvery (cleverly dodging the lurking crocodiles), finish her pooja, run after the cows, pin them down, milk them herself, then grind the coffee seeds, roast them, prepare the decoction, and get the steaming coffee ready for my grandfather at 5 am sharp, before he commenced his morning ablutions. All this, while she continued to prolifically deliver several babies a year.
What make my eyes red, my ears steam and my blood boil are the double standards of women these days.. Last night, when I was engrossed in my favourite episode of “Friends”, wife actually asked me to go down to the shop nearby and get some bread for the kids. To pack lunch for them the next day, she explained. This complete insensitivity for a fellow human-being engaged in an intellectual exercise got my goat. Did she think that this was such a simple errand? The shop is a good 200 metres away – which meant I had to not only walk down to my basement, but had to open the car door with my bare hands, insert the ignition key in the right place, start the car, put it on first gear while applying the clutch, press the accelerator slowly while simultaneously releasing the clutch, play my favourite CD, navigate my way through the maddening traffic, find a parking slot……in other words 15 minutes of agonising, back-breaking, manual labour. Can’t the kids manage without bread for a day? Why can’t they eat cake ?.
Let me narrate one more incident to gain your sympathy. Once, I brought four of my colleagues home for dinner. I grant you that I should have called my wife and given her advance notice, which I omitted to do. Ok, I forgot. So, what? I am only human. To err is human, but to her it was a crime. The screaming and ranting that I had to put up with for a week! All for the merest trifle of mixing a few ingredients and cooking a meal for four, aided by the galaxy of fancy gadgets that is found in the kitchen. Hell, there’s even a device to peel the onions, without bringing a drop of tear to the eye. In contrast, my great-grandma - bless her soul- had to harvest the paddy from the fields, de-husk it, de-stone the rice, collect wooden twigs from the forest, crush the snakes and the scorpions with her bare feet, draw water from the well using counter-weights, pluck the vegetables from the fields, light the stove, cook the rice, remove the starch, feed the first helping to the crows and serve the meal piping-hot to my great-grandpa And she did this every day without a whimper of protest . All my great-grandpa had to do was let out a loud burp and other similar bodily noises after the hearty meal. I tell you, dear readers, that those were halcyon days when men were he-men and women had perfect role clarity.
Now, when I am busy blogging, wife asks me to change a fused bulb in the bathroom instead of wasting my time with my chat-mates. . What lop-sided priorities and what contempt for blogging! First, in these enlightened days, when liberated women commandeer space shuttles, fly solo aircrafts and head large MNCs, one would have thought wife would have by now acquired the elementary intelligence to change a light bulb. No such luck. I must do it, because she is not tall enough to reach the bulb holder. Must I do all the hard work in the house, merely because I am 6”1” tall? Second, does she think blogging is child’s play? Is she aware at all of the depth of knowledge, intensity of research and thoroughness of detail that characterise my blogs
Sigh ! What degeneration of values. We live in decadent times ! Let me go and change that blasted bulb now.
Why she should go ballistic over such a simple request, I could never fathom. It would have taken her hardly a couple of minutes to warm the milk in the gas stove, mix the instant coffee and sugar and serve it to me, along with some chocolate biscuits, as I was on my recliner chair reading a book. Nothing complicated about it. Minimum physical labour involved.
It is not as if she had to slog it out like my multi-tasking grandmother who had to wake up at 3 am everyday, have a cold dip in the Cauvery (cleverly dodging the lurking crocodiles), finish her pooja, run after the cows, pin them down, milk them herself, then grind the coffee seeds, roast them, prepare the decoction, and get the steaming coffee ready for my grandfather at 5 am sharp, before he commenced his morning ablutions. All this, while she continued to prolifically deliver several babies a year.
What make my eyes red, my ears steam and my blood boil are the double standards of women these days.. Last night, when I was engrossed in my favourite episode of “Friends”, wife actually asked me to go down to the shop nearby and get some bread for the kids. To pack lunch for them the next day, she explained. This complete insensitivity for a fellow human-being engaged in an intellectual exercise got my goat. Did she think that this was such a simple errand? The shop is a good 200 metres away – which meant I had to not only walk down to my basement, but had to open the car door with my bare hands, insert the ignition key in the right place, start the car, put it on first gear while applying the clutch, press the accelerator slowly while simultaneously releasing the clutch, play my favourite CD, navigate my way through the maddening traffic, find a parking slot……in other words 15 minutes of agonising, back-breaking, manual labour. Can’t the kids manage without bread for a day? Why can’t they eat cake ?.
Let me narrate one more incident to gain your sympathy. Once, I brought four of my colleagues home for dinner. I grant you that I should have called my wife and given her advance notice, which I omitted to do. Ok, I forgot. So, what? I am only human. To err is human, but to her it was a crime. The screaming and ranting that I had to put up with for a week! All for the merest trifle of mixing a few ingredients and cooking a meal for four, aided by the galaxy of fancy gadgets that is found in the kitchen. Hell, there’s even a device to peel the onions, without bringing a drop of tear to the eye. In contrast, my great-grandma - bless her soul- had to harvest the paddy from the fields, de-husk it, de-stone the rice, collect wooden twigs from the forest, crush the snakes and the scorpions with her bare feet, draw water from the well using counter-weights, pluck the vegetables from the fields, light the stove, cook the rice, remove the starch, feed the first helping to the crows and serve the meal piping-hot to my great-grandpa And she did this every day without a whimper of protest . All my great-grandpa had to do was let out a loud burp and other similar bodily noises after the hearty meal. I tell you, dear readers, that those were halcyon days when men were he-men and women had perfect role clarity.
Now, when I am busy blogging, wife asks me to change a fused bulb in the bathroom instead of wasting my time with my chat-mates. . What lop-sided priorities and what contempt for blogging! First, in these enlightened days, when liberated women commandeer space shuttles, fly solo aircrafts and head large MNCs, one would have thought wife would have by now acquired the elementary intelligence to change a light bulb. No such luck. I must do it, because she is not tall enough to reach the bulb holder. Must I do all the hard work in the house, merely because I am 6”1” tall? Second, does she think blogging is child’s play? Is she aware at all of the depth of knowledge, intensity of research and thoroughness of detail that characterise my blogs
Sigh ! What degeneration of values. We live in decadent times ! Let me go and change that blasted bulb now.
hey PU
ReplyDeleteu have a gem of wifey i think :)
funny blog though
cheers
jeenu
Say hip hip hurray to urself.If u were in the US...you would end up dishwashing,washing clothes, folding clothes(toughest part comes next) , keeping them in the right place, ironing......and what not.
ReplyDeleteWhat a serious blog! What grim situations u face ! u seem to be an expert in dealing with socio-economic issues :)))
ReplyDeleteFantastic!!
ReplyDeleteI am going ahead and linking this to a post of mine, I hope you don't mind.
Once again, very funny, Thanks.
Welcome to the club.
ReplyDeleteExtremely funny :) If I took this post and wringed the sarcasm out of it, it would fill a swimming pool! :)
ReplyDeletePoor wife of yours ;))
I LOVE irony and sarcasm, and this post is just dripping with it! :)
ReplyDelete