It happens only to Uma!

A year ago (time is a healer of sorts & has given me the courage to tell this tale!), there was a state of chaos & panic, at Casa Kaushik. Our one & only offspring was gratefully flying the nest & heading to university, in London. The fact that her hyper, anxious desi parents were accompanying her, did not hassle her; not because of her undying love for us, but because we were going to drop her off & return home, leaving her to savour her much anticipated freedom & the heady experience of living in a parent-less universe .... At Last!!!

So much to do, so little time! Anyone who has gone through the ‘bidaai’ ritual will know what I’m talking about. Like a possessed soul, I would wake up in the middle of the night, rush to the kitchen,take a small knife (don’t worry – the only unsavoury thing I have not atempted in life is murder!), a lemon squeezer & kitchen sponges & dump them in my daughter’s suitcase. My qualified-to-handle-crazy-wife-husband & thank-God-I’m-leaving-daughter, kept a safe distance from me!

Almost didn’t, but managed to squeeze in a rushed trip to my beauty salon, filled with cackling Filipina women & here’s the thing – I always get the feeling that they’re talking about me, or laughing at me!

But this time, it was different – I had no time to be sensitive & thankfully, the laughter club was subdued; while the owner was away, these girls were busy skyping with their families. I just needed the lawn that flourished above my upper lip, to be mowed to perfection. I have made peace with a lot of stuff in life, but draw the line at sporting a moustache!

So one of the girls started ruthlessly threading my ‘mooch’ & displayed fine skills of multi tasking, by simultaneously cooing to her fat, gorgeous baby on skype, being given a massage by her grandmother! Suddenly she shrieked, ‘Finished Madam’ & I just hurriedly paid & rushed back.

Scene shifts to London. Suputri was happily settled into her hostel & giving us broad hints that we needed to make ourselves scarce; apparently, it is social suicide to have your eager parents hanging around you. Mistake mat karo, we were supposed to help, but like the elves in the fairy tale, ‘The Shoe maker & the Elves’, we had to sneak in and out of the hostel, before daylight broke!

Suddenly, we were on our own, sans Beti-S, in our hotel room, a little unsure about what we were supposed to do. So I found myself in the wash room, peering into those tiny, scary, magnifying mirrors, which highlight every flaw ruthlessly & horror of horrors, discovered that only one half of the moustache had been threaded off, leaving the other side, proud & manly, reflected oh-so-clearly!!!

OMG!!! In my hurry, I had forgotten to check if the lady at the beauty parlour had finished properly & she of course, was too busy drooling over her baby, to bother! What the .....@#$%?! I did calm down eventually & had the unique opportunity to check if I looked better with, or without a moustache! Without definitely, or my husband, who is very proud of his lush, black, Veerappan like meeshai, would get a complex!

Necessity is the mother of invention. The Vaadhiyaar/Pandit, at our wedding, despaired about the fact that I refused to play the coy, demure bride; but now, in a bid to avoid traumatising the janta in London, I walked quietly & with my head dipped down, quite the bashful bride!! If there was a travelling circus in town, I could have easily be employed by them as the ‘half-half- woman!!!’ If you go through our London photographs, you will notice that all the pictures have been taken from a long distance! The photographer, mainly Ashok & some unsuspecting Londoners, whom we requested to take a photo or two, were never allowed to cross the ‘Lakshman-Rekha,’ defined by yours truly!!!

All these years, when family, friends & well meaning loved ones, gently tried to tell me, in the kindest ways possible, that these things seemed to happen exclusively to me, I refused to believe them. But here I am, on the ripe side of forty, crooning, ‘Main Aisa Kyon Hoon’ & yep, ‘It happens only to Uma!!!’