Sep 9, 2008

What the 7ft guy taught us

Aditi, Sri & I were traveling from Bangalore to Chennai. We had rowed over something and traveled the distance from home to the Cantonment railway station in silence. My parents-in-law had advised Sri to take care of the situation, not blow it up further (yeah, they knew all about it – things are always out in the open). We wouldn’t listen, would we?

We reached the station only to find out the train was going to be at least 4 hours late. Now, we had to spend that time – we caught ourselves some good seats at the waiting room – opposite each other. Not wantonly – they were the ones available. After a few glares, we stopped looking at each other.

Half an-hour later in came a family of three – a man, at least 7ft. tall, his wife – a stout lady with the most ill-fitting track pants and sweat shirt and an “I am dumb” sign painted all over her and their son, a baby of 12-15 months max, dressed in some nightwear, half his size, with diaper visibly soggy. I turned away from looking at them because, the sight of the boy made me want to go up to them, grab him and change his diapers. I constantly kept checking Aditi’s diapers throughout the time we were there.

I consciously decided not to make an appearance judgment on the family. Meanwhile, as there was no room for all the three to sit on the sofas in the waiting room, the tall guy sat down with his legs straightened out with the baby on his chest (trying to put the kid to sleep) and the lady asked another to move a little bit and squeezed herself there. Well, the son wouldn’t sleep – he was amused at having company. Aditi was excited to see him too. She tried to go near them, but they were not too forthcoming, they did not even let the kid go. Sleep time, was sleep time, I guess. There was another older kid that wanted to play with her and we just let them be. The other kid’s mother offered her biscuits and that clinched things for Aditi. She never turned to the younger boy after that.

In the ordeal of putting the son to sleep, successful after a long time, the tall guy dozed off too. The kid slipped from him on to the chilly floor, but remained asleep. As a reasonable woman, I expected the lady to relieve the husband of the kid and let them both sleep. This dimwit tried to wake the hubby up to tell him that the kid had slipped on to the floor – she called out to him, “Sri, Sri”. Sri and I looked at them and stared back at each other. The tall guy didn’t budge. She again called out to him in a louder voice. He woke up and glowered at her. She meekly (subservient, is the word), told him that the kid had fallen down from his lap and he was falling asleep. He scowled and mumbled something and she left things at that. He looked like he would have slapped her hard that minute but had chosen not to, for her own good. Sri & I looked at each other.

Aditi was causing trouble. She was at everyone’s luggage busy opening zippers and stuff. Sri was working away on his laptop but decided against it, when he saw what Aditi was up to. The other kids were both fast asleep, but this lady was all charged-up. He had to get up, cross over and take the kid. When he was at it, I told him, “You are lucky, you don’t have a wife like that”. Sri said, “….and you, a husband like that”.

These days when we fight we tell each other how lucky we are :P and almost end the fight instantaneously.

1 comment:

Sri said...

good flow. interesting narration.