The Battle of the Bathian Sea

Captain Shorty Pie is standing short in the Bathian Sea and this time she is surrounded by a multitude of sea creatures. One by one the creatures are floating towards her. A star fish, a sea horse, an octopus, a blue whale, a sea lion, a shark and a jelly fish all of them in every single direction, lay there waiting for her to make the next step. She is completely surrounded, she has nowhere to go. Oh god! this is the first time in the history of Sea creatures attacking a short Captain, that there are so many sea creatures attacking a short captain all at once.

The star fish is all orangey and ready to feast on the prey. The sea lion makes an echoing moo noise which is extremely devastating. The sea horse does the sea horse neigh and taking quick swim steps to get ready for the attack. The octopus waves all of its arms in every direction and makes its move slowly towards the captain and getting ready to embrace her in its venomous arms. The blue whale squirts out water from the top and opens its mouth wide open with the blue whale noise. The shark makes rapid swims and jumps with its fins and coming in closer. The jelly fish emanates its vicious jelly like substance that will get anyone who comes in its path.

Such was the situation, so dangerous and nowhere to go. But our captain has conquered the 7 seas. She has been there to every corner of the world and fought every creature in her way. She is no stranger to such situation. She can handle this with ease. Captain gets ready with her crouching stand with legs wide apart. It is the strongest of the stance and only experienced adventurers adapt it.

She quickly moves to the right and grabs the star fish with her palm and squeezes the juice out of it and throws it away. The rest of the creatures pause for a moment and get cautious. They come to know she is not an easy prey. She is a fighter and they have to beware. The sea horse quickly tries to make an attack from the back, but our captain is too smart. She grabs the sea horse by its stomach and squeezes its juice out of it and puts it in a container. The rest of the creatures are now really scared, they are not going to take the next step but will wait for her.

But she doesn’t wait, She has got into her stance and there is no turning back for her. She now grabs the blue whale with her right hand and the jelly fish by her left hand and squeezes them and extracts an ocean of juice from them in just a few seconds. She growls and makes an angry face when she does that. It scares the big juices out of the Octopus and the Shark, who are the only ones left in the battle. They are not sure if they are strong enough to fight the almighty captain. Shorty pie puts one step further towards the octopus. The shark takes one step back. The octopus tries to bow down to the incredible pie but it is not forgiven. The shark tries to give an attack from the side but she is too clever and moves away. The shark now goes to her left and watches the captain squeezing the last drops of juice from the octopus.

It is now a duel between the shark and the captain. The shark makes one final attempt to jump on the captain. The captain catches the shark and squeezes the juice out of it too. The shark screams in agony but that is masked completely by the arrogant growl of the juice squeezing captain. Captain Shorty Pie of the bathian sea once again smells victory.

And this is how I see, when my daughter plays with her squirt toys in the bath tub.

Marathon Marriages

Law of Marathon Marriages:

1. When there are cousins and relatives who are in the same age range chances are they will not get married in the same year, unless you plan a Vacation to India during that time.

2. The net amount of marital force is calculated by the formula = Number of vacation days multiplied by Number of Marriages.

3. For every Marriage happening in a Marriage hall in Madurai, there will be a Balloon seller standing opposite to the hall.

Marriages are made in heaven goes the old saying. But when Marriages happen in quick succession and especially if you are supposed to attend each and every one of them right from the time you land, it becomes drastically deviated from being heaven. I wouldn’t call it hell though as I loved the experience and the food. Well Ok, mostly the food!

The last vacation to India, We had close to 25 days to spend in Madurai but most of the days were spent in attending marriages and functions. We had to attend a marriage function right on the day we were landing in Madurai and I totally wished I had the following conversation with the Air hostess of the delayed Air Deccan flight from Chennai to Madurai.

… IMAGINARY CONVERSATION BEGINS

Me: Excuse me, Artificially-looking-beautiful-due-to-heavy-makeup Air Hostess! I am getting late for my cousin’s marriage. Can you please ask the captain to drop me by the marriage hall.

Air Hostess: Sure, why not! Whatever the customer says, Customer is first.

(She moves towards the cockpit)

Me: While you are there can you ask him to not wiggle the airplane, it feels funny! and ask him to drive faster, I just saw a 90 year old passing us in his bicycle in mid air! and Please go in and change the color of your uniform, your bright red color dress is blinding me!

(She comes back from the cockpit.)

Air Hostess: The Captain said you must be crazy. There is only one runway in Madurai airport, so if we take that runway and put it near the Marriage hall, where your Cousin’s marriage is going on then there will be no runway in the airport.

… IMAGINARY CONVERSATION ENDS

After we arrived home we were immediately transported to the cousin’s marriage. We were hardly dressed for the occasion and by the time we went there the marriage was over, but we were about on time for the Photo Session and Lunch. I enjoyed the food so much that I shamelessly had extra helpings of Veg Briyani when everyone had almost reached the end of the game eating their curd rice. Such was the start of the Vacation of Marathon Marriages.

The procedure to attend a marriage function after you are married is drastically different from attending one when you are bachelor. The itinerary between your home and the marriage hall is usually intersected by a visit to the in laws, especially if the marriage is happening on your in laws side.

So, The next day we got ready and went to my in-laws house from where we were supposed to go to another marriage hall for attending another cousin’s marriage.To avoid myself explaining the relationship (which I am terrible at) I am just going use the phrase “Another Cousin” for every Cousin. My wife had to get dressed for the occasion at her place, as the materials needed were (in)conveniently at her place.

As I entered the in laws house, I couldn’t help notice my Father in Law sitting on the sofa wearing a Munda Banian and a Sangu Mark Lungi. He was sitting there silently channel surfing with the TV remote control. Here I am completely dressed and ready for the function and he was lounging in the couch. So I had to ask:

Me: “Aren’t you getting ready to go FIL? We have to be there in 30 minutes.”

FIL: “Relax, Your mother in law has just now got in to get ready. Please sit down now, why don’t you have Bovonto and watch some TV for a while”

And so I made up my mind and sat down on the couch watching TV with him. In few minutes I was involuntarily getting restless of the fact that the time was approaching, while the daughter merrily played with her toys and FIL still in his relaxed at-home costume watching TV. Just then, my Wife and MIL came out of the room in their Saree.

Me: Great, we are ready now. FIL, I think you should get ready now and we should go.

FIL: Relax, They just got dressed. They have to wear Jewels now.

Me: But, we have to be there in 5 minutes. We will be disrespecting them if we go late. ( Which I actually meant to say – “We gotta go, what if the food gets over? I want to eat the main lunch, not the Its-over-so-let’s-make-up-something-quick lunch”)

FIL goes back to his TV watching. I now wanted to beat the restlessness and so carried myself to the computer room and played a few games for a while. Apparently it seems it takes the same time for a Woman to wear Jewels as wearing the Saree and I am scientifically unable to explain this phenomenon. So we were obviously getting delayed. I finally realized it doesn’t matter how restless I am, things will happen at its own pace, I had to be patient, a self realization moment.

The Jewels were on and I finally heaved a relieving sigh and got up from the computer. But FIL is unbelievable as his relaxation didn’t end even after that. I badly needed a magic wand to wave at him and get him dressed but his reply was “There is always the last touch up!” and he was right. As they were just about to finish on their last minute touch up, the FIL man went in and came out in his dress in 1 minute. He simply put a Well disciplined McClaren Formula one Pit Crew to shame.

But I learnt something that day. I learnt to be patient, I learnt to endure under circumstances and keep myself cool. I learnt that it doesn’t matter if you get restless, you just sit down, relax and play along. When we got there we were not as late as we thought. Everything was fine and I was able to have my moment of eating a delicious meal.

20 out of 25 days of Waking up early, getting ready and going through the waiting process of the ladies getting ready, attending the function, smiling at people, laughing at jokes, cracking intelligent jokes and receiving blank stares, cracking dumb jokes and setting the entire hall in laughter and so on it went. We had a fun time and when it was all over, emptiness returned and we were back to our normal life.

When we work on things, we fail to see the bigger picture. We only see how difficult the task at hand is, we forget that we have worked tougher tasks before or there are people who have worked tougher tasks before. If you learn to see the things in that perspective, there will never be a moment of frustration. You will be able to handle and solve any problem in your life. I will leave you with a Haiku:

See not a Problem

as a Hurdle, but see it

as a task to solve!

What I mean is if you are going to be late for a Marriage don’t be so late to miss the lunch!