With due respect to her as well as old age, I write this post on Bibiji whom we fondly know as B. I've been hearing about her since a few months now. I've also met her a couple o' times. Her weird ways get us laughing to wit's end, even though she may come across as any other frail old woman. In short she is weirdness personified.
It was only when I spoke to her and offered her help in ironing clothes, I came to know the real B: strong headed, aggressive and one who loves it if all the household members keep coming to her every two minutes. And she DOES have millions of ways of ensuring the same.
When you come home after a long tiring day and see two real long fat leafy radishes lying on your bed, you have just about 3 options: Laugh, cry or shout at what is going around. These radishes are obviously kept on your bed by none other than miss B. Next you feel like having a banana shake and notice that all the bananas you bought a day ago are missing. What do you do? Ask B. And B answers: they are kept in a polybag under a chair. Eatables like those we thought are supposed to be kept on the dining table or the kitchen shelf. But now we do have our doubts.
You wake up in the morning to see four plastic buckets filled with clothes kept in your BEDROOM. Not any particular morning but EVERY SINGLE morning. And these have taken the same place that should ideally belong to a flowerpot, a water fountain or some other show piece of the like. And now the idea behind keeping those four buckets:
Bucket 1: Contains clothes that are to be washed
Bucket 2: Contains clothes that are to be dried
Bucket 3: Contains clothes that have been washed and need not b ironed
Bucket 4: Contains clothes that have been washed and need ironing
All this is done in your room. Meaning you have no privacy at all!
Among the countless weird habits of B's, one is collecting polybags; the ones in which the vegetable vendors put in the vegetables for you. She has a fetish for them. So much so that you can find those ugly little packets in every nook of the house you can possibly imagine. And yet comes the one habit which leaves you wondering if anything can save you from what’s more in store for you from B's bag of weirdness. You enter the loo and see leaves of mustard greens (sarson ka saag) on the floor! A bit of investigation reveals that the delicious sarson ka saag you had for lunch was actually washed in your damn loo and not in the kitchen sink! Yikes! And that is not all. You further find out that the saag was washed using none other than the BUM WASHER!!! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeww!!!!!!! And again the mastermind behind this brilliant idea was darling B.
The person who actually lives with B and bears all the abovesaid torture says that saag shall not see the house's 'chulha' anymore. Wise decision.
And all said and done, the way this person takes everything in a positive way and keeps shut, is something that deserves a prize. This person puts up with B's eccentricities and lets her age gracefully... eh?
Alternate Histories
15 years ago
