Brother bother

Times have changed. Gone are the days when a couple had a cricket team they called children. By the time my mom and dad decided to have me, We two, ours two campaign was in full swing.

As luck would have it, my parents didn’t have enough money to raise two children. So they decided to stop with me. However, today if there was a time machine that they could get into, they’d have gone back and aborted me.

Now growing up without siblings has its own pros and cons. I wouldn’t know of them because I didn’t have any siblings. Hence, I do not find myself to be in a position capable enough to judge the parameters.

But then, to let me know what family is and to introduce me to my cousins – believe me, I have 22 of them – I was dragged along to every wedding, first birthday celebrations, engagements, birthdays, receptions, baby showers, cross-belt (Poonal) ceremonies, deaths, death anniversaries, 60th birthdays, 80th birthdays, combined holidays, group outings and what the fuck not.

Their relentless efforts resulted in me knowing I have 22 cousins in my immediate family and about thrice as many in my extended family.

There is another problem that the nuclear family syndrome brought along with it. Every family, like an independent pod, migrated to different parts of the country and set up roots of their family tree there. This resulted in meeting them and conversing with them only on any of the afore-mentioned social events. Me being what I always was, could get close to only a few of them who didn’t ask me questions like Which class are you now in?, What rank do you get?, Who is your best friend?, Are you an opening batsman?, Do you want more Kesari?, Do you like Raddish? and people who didn’t pass statements like, That’s a very nice shirt!, Oh, you’ve become so tall!, You should be wearing braces!, That’s a nice watch!, You have become so thin!, You have become so fat!, Ah, you’ve started growing thick leg hair! and so on and so forth. Basically, I am close to only 2 of my cousins.

Then technology happened out of nowhere. We all had cell phones and had all of our cousins’ numbers stored. Yet I’d never call them. Neither did they call me. And when I did call, my pleasant ‘Helllooo!’ would invariably be followed by, ‘Hmph, you forgot about us.’ Well, put that comment up your ass ‘cuz neither did you try calling me. So, fuck you.

So as I take this stand of being content with the limited friends I have in my life and defining family as my dad, mom and me, mom tries to alter that at every opportunity she gets.

Now women, being what I haven’t been able to and will never be able to understand, seem to have this uncanny ability to remember almost every birthday of everyone they ever meet. And not just that, they even wish each and every one of them. My mom, being a woman herself, possesses this peculiar trait by virtue of her gene structure.

And she reminds me of every cousin’s birthday and asks me to call them and wish them. This, my dear readers, non readers and stumblers, is the most daunting task I perform 20 times every year. I do call them. But I call them when the day is over. When they are too tired to answer a call. When they are too tired to talk. And when they just don’t want to talk.

And I do this for a reason. And like always, allow me to bullet them like I do very often on my blog these days.

Here’s the scenario. It’s my cousin’s birthday and I call him/her. Invariably, the following events would occur.

• I call them
• He/she picks up
• I shout all excited, “Happy Birthday!”
• He/she manages to whimper out a meek ‘Thank you.’
• Awkward silence (Understand that the last time I spoke to him/her was the last time he/she called me for my birthday or when I called him/her last year to with Happy Birthday. So there apparently is a possibility of 6 months to one year’s worth of information to be exchanged.)
• I ask, ‘So, when plans today?’
• Reply, “Urmmm, nothing special. The usual’
• Awkward silence
• I ask, ‘So, what have you been up to all these days?’
• Reply lasts for over 5 minutes. Information that won’t do me or humanity any good. But it is necessary to do this nonsense because when I do call the next year, I would have to listen to 2 years’ worth of crap. So might as well divide the torture to last you in bits for a lifetime than to die all at once.
• And there I am, holding on to my handset. Shaking my head. Bored out of my wits. Not knowing when to end the call. And worried about my STD bills.
• Finally manage to cut the call. And if I happen to be around my mom when the call gets cut, mom follows it all up with “See? I had to remind you of YOUR cousin’s birthday!… Blah… Blah… Blah….“

So what if I don’t remember birthdays? What’s the big fucking deal in celebrating an event where one was expelled from a vagina on this very day a few years back?

~ by Farting Pen on November 11, 2009.