Misadventures of the Married Kind- II: Maika

(Continued from here...)

Hindi movies and soaps are abounding with tales of the coy, shy female going to the ‘maika’ from her ‘sasural’ and how she transforms back into the uninhibited girl that she was before she morphed into the dutiful bahu.

True enough. Most femmes do tend to be a little bit more carefree, a little bit more irresponsible and a lot lazier the minute they go to their old homes.

However, no Hindi programme seems to have depicted what transformation takes place in the jamai-feller the minute he goes to the wife’s house.

I have been closely studying this phenomenon and have observed a number of behavioral transformations which become suddenly visible.

One of the most interesting reactions to the maika is the change in a jamai-feller’s metabolism. A normally active verging on exhaustingly active) person suddenly seems to go into some kind of deep state of suspended animation.

Seemingly the only way to rouse this person from this comatose state is to initiate conversations about food. Suddenly one will witness a rapid increase in heart rate and salivary glands. Vocal chords are also activated – enough to list out the particular delicacies which are craved on that particular day.

A great degree of analysis and thought are involved in deciding the menu for the day. Dish x can be offered only on Fridays (after skipping an evening snack in order to have plenty of space for aforementioned Dish x). That should ideally be accompanied by dessert Y (and only Y – anything heavier than Y shall not be appreciated and anything less than dessert Y will be a waste of an opportunity). There is a great deal of debate and thought before foray on relative merits of Dish X versus other dishes- this analysis can start as much as a week in advance of advent into maika and HAS to be satisfactorily resolved in specimen’s head.

There is also a marked degree of increase in dependency on wife. A normally self sufficient, fully functional human being becomes dependent on wife for almost everything. – The roti (to the sofa where he lies comfortably reposed), kapda (to the bathroom when he wants to shower) and well, not makaan but the makaan ke fittings (‘increase the fan speed’/’close the lights’/’ switch on the hand-shower’)

Also there appears to be a distinct tendency to fall into a very deep, dreamless and long sleep – apparently disassociating his mind from the normal cares of daily routine – which one would expect in the girl going to her erstwhile home but is surprisingly very visible in the fellow also.

Another visible and completely inexplicable observed change is how the Nietzsche-Plato-Saki-Luce reader develops this incomprehensible fascination with Mumbai Mirror. Early mornings one can see him making a beeline for the same, sitting in a corner, beatifically reading about Kangana Ranaut and ‘How-a-squirrel-in-Toronto-steals-a-Mars-bar” and occasionally chortling to himself. This, I should add is a particularly baffling occurrence.

This is an on-going study, so additional findings will be published as and when discovered.


P.S. I have to add a word of gratitude to the jamai-feller here, for allowing me to write stuff like this in the first place.

P.P.S Incidentally, a friend of mine (who knows my er ..Idiosyncrasies) has plans to brainwash the self same jamai feller to start a blog where people (she!) can see his views of marriage and misadventures. Thank God, he hates typing!