Tuesday, 8th February - 02:00 pm
One of the unlikliest thing to happen in this world is my brother agreeing to go to a relative's place. The two choices he gave himself are sleeping in guruvayur and meeting us in Thrissur directly at the station OR he and I going for a movie while our parents do the jive with the relatives. Adding fuel to fire, the person we were supposed to meet told us that he might not be present and will do his best to be there. My brother inteprets it as, "I won't be there. But I can't say no directly. Take the cue and don't come to my place". Dad disagreed and we land in the house of our relative.
Here's where fun starts - an elderly lady welcomes us in and my dad as usual is his witty, funny self talking to her and enquiring about the family and all that. The old lady recognizes me and tells my mom that she's seen me in Bangalore - My mom cames and asks me how the old lady is related. Now, I am surprised because the info usually flows the other way round. I, personally, have no idea too. We wait for our dad coz he seems very pally pally with her. When we ask him, he gives us his typical mischievous smile and tells us he has no idea either. Now, it's odd to settle yourself in the house and then ask the only lady inside who she is. After sometime, a guy enters and is surprised to see us there. Now, I have to add that I have seen the relative ~R in Q is before and I know this guy is not his son. We do some small talk and I ask him where he's staying. He looks at me quizzically and says this is his house, wondering whether I am nuts sitting in his own house and asking him where he lives. My dad gives me a nasty smirk, assumes this guy should be the ~R's son and asks him whether his dad is in the site (~R is a building contractor and my dad was sure of this info because he knows it first hand). The guy non-chalantly replies with a touch of suspicion, "No, he's in dubai". Stumped - "Joint family probably. ~R's family and ~R's brother's family", I whisper under my breath. My dad then asks him when ~R will come home. Our guy adds, "Once a month probably. Not very often these days". You should have seen my brother's face - "We are in the wrong house. He's never going to be here and our train is 6 hours later!". If looks could kill :) We then realized that the lady didn't know we were going to be there. So, she was furiously cooking for extra 4. She wouldn't let us go and she found the suggestion quite offensive. So, we had to stay and my mom rolled her sleeves and went to help her out with that while the guy (who was 21) fidgeted with the paper for sometime and left, leaving me (grinning!), my dad (trying to look at anything else but my bro) and my bro (fuming, threatening my dad my running his fingers across his neck as if slitting it). We planned so many things for this day - trip to Munnar, movie, lush dinner - finally spending it in a house where we were not expected, uninvited on some ad hoc lunch (which were delicious nonetheless)
PS: If you are wondering, my bro made my dad pay till the last penny by pulling his leg for the next two days!
- posted by Super Ted @ 9:05 AM