It is one of those traditions that go on in spite of the fact that everyone participating hates it. We call it the ‘Cousins Club’, quite aptly missing the apostrophy since its only purpose is to beat up one member into a bloody mess at every congregation. It comprises of aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins of cousins, people who are ‘almost family’, and is surprisingly cosmopolitan for a mob that regressive. The average age is about 55. We meet on the second Sunday every month for a potpourri lunch. All attempts to wriggle out of it are quashed by well meaning parents and ill meaning siblings, who do not want to face the ordeal alone.
I had managed to escape the spotlight for a long time now. The last time being right after my twelfth standard board results were declared and my marks were dissected; ten years on, I still get nightmares. Last month the victim was Shwetha, my aunt's niece. She had been caught indulging in the shameful act of ‘internet chatting’ by her mother. The mother, of course, sought the collective opinion of the geriatric members of the club on how to deal with the ‘situation’. The advice came fast and furious, horror stories were exchanged. Anuran kaka told of a niece who had fallen in love with a ‘krichhan’ boy, quite forgetting that Shwetha's family were staunch Catholics. Strangely Shwetha's mother understood, because she could relate to the pain of a daughter falling in love with an ‘outcaste’ (that’s the word she used, I swear). Everyone conveniently forgot that Shwethas aunt, a catholic, had married uncle Jai, a Hindu and both were present in the room. Nobody was interested in the fact that Shwetha had been online with a woman academic discussing her college applications.
It started harmlessly enough with everyone enquiring about my new job. I was confident because such interrogations were usually limited to the length of the commute and wholly inappropriate and direct questions about the ‘take home’ salary, which, in this case, I was quite proud of. It was my brother who threw me to the wolves.
‘Tell them what you do, didi.’ he said.
I mumbled ‘telecom’ ... ‘marketing’.. I wouldn’t want to bore you..
‘Don’t be silly, we are like your parents. We would love to know what our daughter does at work.’ This from a matron I could not quite place.
‘Didi is in charge of promoting Value Added Services. So all the calls and SMSs you get from your telecom service provider, she is responsible for those.’
Now I have been attending these dos forever, and I don’t think we have ever encountered silence so thick at any of our meetings.
‘So you do telemarketing?’ a hushed incredulous voice said.
‘And those SMSs I keep getting? You do those too?’
'What about the automatic diallers hawking new ring tones?'
'What about the automatic diallers hawking new ring tones?'
‘I don’t personally make any calls or send any SMSs. I just coordinate....’
‘See, when you get an extremely annoying call in the middle of an important meeting, and you ask to speak to a supervisor, the one who is never available? That’s didi.’ said Judas.
'Im not really the supervisor, she reports to me..."
'Im not really the supervisor, she reports to me..."
The questions started pouring in.
‘Yes Kishore mama, the national DND works, we never call a customer who has registered,’ I said, safe in the knowledge that he subscribed to competition.
“No uncle Josh, if you curse at the automatic dialler, I do not get a recording of it the next day’
“No bhai, we do not do a victory dance and shout “die sucker” every time we close a sale.” to Judas again.
“Yes Kamla aunty, we have it in our records that you are sixty-two. I guess we should have realised you would not want to download Mallika Sherawat wallpapers ... “
It seemed like it would never end, so I resorted to the last, dirtiest, most embarrassing trick in the book. Tears. In and instant the tide turned in my favour. Sympathetic murmurings began, ‘it’s a job like any other’ ‘why are all of you pouncing on the poor girl’ ‘someone’s got to do it’ and ‘at least the pay is good’. At this point I realised don’t get paid nearly enough, and made a mental note to ask for a raise.
After the excitement had subsided, and I had ‘washed my face’ had my hand patted by a dozen uncles and been hugged by all the auntys in the room, I casually turned to my brother and said, ‘By the way bro, why did you throw that packet of cigarettes out the window? It still had some left. Good I saw you do it, I have kept the pack back in your room.’
All eyes shifted to him.
As I left the room I turned around and mouthed ‘die sucker’.
No comments:
Post a Comment