Lockdown with Mamasaurus!

All my ‘I love yous’ come with an expiry date. When we have our sweet moment (which is mostly after having a hearty meal someplace nice) and I go “I Love you”, Ram always asks “Expiry date bata?” And I don’t really blame him, my behavior is mostly based on ‘now’. In other words, I am fickle minded and since apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so is Dhruvi. Since she is 6 years old and also a girl, her reactions are a bit out of proportion. One moment she is beaming with joy, showering thousand kisses on you and the next moment, when something doesn’t go like she wants, within a fraction of second, she goes “I HATE YOU” with anger unlimited!

Now, hold this thought in your mind coz we’ll come back to this a little later!

Housewarming

So, we are to have our housewarming ceremony in June. All family members have their train/flight tickets booked and the planning was full on. Only things pending were: booking the caterer, finding a place for the folks to stay and the biggest of all, saree shopping! We had decided long ago that for the housewarming, we’ll go to Kanchipuram for silk saree shopping; for us as well as the guests. Guess who was super excited? Nah…not me..MY MUM!

My parents came to Bangalore last month to stay with us coz it had been a year and I really was missing them way too much! On April 4th, after the kids exams were over, we had planned our Kanchi trip and even booked Club Mahindra Puducherry for a staycation, since it is super close to Kanchi. (Ram keeps teasing my mum that he’ll take us to Pondicherry then Kanchi to buy sarees, come back to Pondicherry to realize that she already has a similar one and take us to Kanchi again, to exchange it on our way back to Bangalore! My mum does get a little annoyed but she can’t say much much coz it’s a true story!)

Lockdown

Well, what do I say, man proposes God disposes! COVID-19 made us all freeze in our tracks and here we are, having a 21 days lockdown! Apart from other stuff, No cook No maid! (For God’s sake! There was literally one thing we had that our friends in fancy countries like US-UK did not!)

By now you all know, slogging is one of my least favorite things to do and in a normal situation my problems would have been different. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids all by myself since Ram is stuck on calls literally all day! (We really thought working from home would be better but naape! We got it wrong!)

But the plan would have been simple, laze around all day, cleaning-mopping twice or thrice a week, taking turns with doing the dishes and surviving on khichdi and maggie, for kids love both equally. (Don’t call me a careless mum for throwing maggie in the menu, I DID NOT PANIC BUY! Also, I hate cooking. Okay, you can call me that… but preferred term is ‘carefree’.)

Mumma Mia!

Guess whaaaaat!!! My Mum is in da house and she’s a ROCKSTAR when it comes to food! (I swear I’m not exaggerating! I did not value homemade food till I was staying with her. It is after getting married that I actually realized how awesome she is at it!) Also, I won’t say she has OCD but dude! She’s a cleanliness freak! (Which completely messes up my life coz I love a tidy house but hate tidying it up!) So, the house too is cleaned EVERY SINGLE DAY! Also, you already know how close I’m to my mum! Remember, the gold digger part I & part II?

Lockdown with mum around sounded great! It was absolutely awesome and then the initial formalities faded. You tend to be all extra nice and kind when you meet after a long time but after a while, you just get back to your normal self right? That is exactly what happened… AND THEN… it was teenage ALL OVER AGAIN!

Trust me, it’s CRAZY! Just like old times, finding flaws with everything I do, endless nagging for things I did not and you know how annoying it is when you were almost about to do something and someone asks you to do it, then you don’t want to do it at all, right?! Honestly, after more than a decade of staying on my own, it doesn’t feel good at all, to be told what to do!

Being mature & The Gender Sh*t

Also, life was much easier when I was irresponsible and immature! I was one of those people who take their parents for granted and feel it was anyways their responsibility to serve us our entire lives! But then I met Ram and learnt that after a while the tables should turn! They’ve done way too much for us and now it was our turn to take care of them.

Since I’ve grown up, I know that I need to help my mum and I do! She does a lot of work, okay, MOST of it but I too do literally everything she says! Yesterday, I washed a truckload of dishes since I did not want her to do it! And Since Ram loves me, he pitched in and he too ended up screaming, “Did we have a buffet for a hundred people here?”

Well, the bugger is a pain in the a** most of the times but got to give him credit where it is due! I still remember, the first day in ‘our’ house after marriage, he cleaned the entire set of steel vessels coz he does not like me doing the dishes! Still doesn’t.) Btw, Ram helping me with the dishes is also what she disliked, coz he is ‘Jamaai’ (son in law)!

The Shower Saga

My mum is a delight till things do not go her way coz then she is a real pain! I absolutely hate it when she treats me like a kid! (Except for the part when she pampers me when I put my head in her lap. That, I like.) I hate the nagging especially! Take a shower, take a shower, DID YOU TAKE A SHOWER? Is this what I taught you? Skipping showers? “Daridrata aave ghar ma!” (You’re inviting misfortune into the house!)

God! Can’t a girl decide when to take a shower? or not to take one at all? If anything, I’m doing world a favor! Saving tons of water! Doctors, Dermatologists, even folks at Harvard recommend to shower every other day! (Btw! I smell awesome. All the time. It’s not like you’re ever gonna check!)

The Meltdown

After an entire day of hard work (hey, it’s subjective!) and nagging which goes on forever, I was sitting and sulking on my bed at 2 am, wondering what to do! And then I saw something scribbled on the wall near the bed. Here:

I WENT BONKERS LAUGHING! I literally rolled on the bed laughing so hard that the edge of the bed hurt me in my knee. Then I was laughing and crying at the same time coz it hurt and God probably was punishing me for being a thankless b*tch!

Remember the first paragraph? So, next day when I asked Dhruvi why she did it, she said, “Nana-Nanee keep asking me to take a bath! AND I DON’T LIKE IT!” I was so proud of her! Oh! The ‘apple’ of my eye!😂

The Solution

Do you think there is one at all? If I had known how to tackle this sh*t I would have done it in my teens! My only strategy to keep my cool and hers too, is to say “Yes Mum!” to everything she says, coz eventually I know… she’s right most of the times!

It is just sad that when all my friends are getting bored at home, I’ve no clue where my time flies! It’s just crazy! I WANT TO GET BORED! I WANT TO HAVE THAT LUXURY OF GETTING BORED! *Sigh* I hope God gives me courage to deal with this tough situation, not talking about Covid but 21 days of lockdown with my mamasaurus! (Plus, two crazy kids and a super busy husband! My papa is like me…Sleep, green tea, fiddle with the phone & chill…so thankfully all good there!)

Vote Of Thanks

Well, our parents & in-laws belong to a different generation altogether. The way they’re brought up is different so the way they think is different, the way they do things is different and the way they talk is different. Believe me, I’m not saying we’re right and they aren’t. It’s not really about rights or wrongs but about the contrast in our lifestyles.

I’ve heard my mum saying that when my grandfather fell ill, he used to be a bit irritated and angry all the time, may be coz of his deteriorating health or just aging, but it was difficult to hear the kind of stuff he said or handle his tantrums. My mum and her siblings did not take it to heart and gave him all the love he deserved, till he was around.

Well, I absolutely believe it is our responsibility to be by our parents’ side all the time, especially when they’re aging and aren’t the same people anymore… but all the people who stay with parents and keep cool and keep loving them, deserve appreciation!

Heartfelt thank you for taking care of them and putting up with their temperament. I’m sure you’ll get that luxury too, coz your kids are watching you.

SO, pat yourself on the back sweets and go online, click the buy button on that awesome but expensive thing that you were eyeing since ages… coz you deserve it! (I did it too but it did not get delivered. You might want to wait till the lockdown is over, but hon, you deserve it! 😘 )

Question of the Day!

How do you react when your parents treat you like a kid and boss you around or expect you to do things their way? Share your sob stories in comments section, so I can feel better, knowing I’m not alone! 😛

COVID -19 : The blog was written in a lighter vein coz trust me, I know it is no joke. A lot has happened around the world coz of COVID and we just got lucky to know how catastrophic it is, a bit in advance. We still stand a chance. We know precisely what to do and we WILL do it, right?

P.S. : STAY THE *UCK HOME!