Episode 3

                                      THE TAMING OF THE DISTANT AUNT

                        Being the further adventures of Hanuman Murali and friends

"In the end of it all" he said "everyman thinks his job sucks". Murali and I were taking what is now known as the brain walk, originally it was planned to be called the brainstorming walk but I thought brain walk would be fine.

The Brain walk never happens when it is really supposed to happen, by supposed I mean the immediate days leading to the issue, but on days; evenings to be precise when Murali would actually get talking about himself.

It was indeed a tough job to get a person to talk, even if he is the most pompous fellow you have ever met.

I started this venture about sometime back, with some amount of confidence that I would be able to generate weekly content with ease, but Murali himself seemed surprised as to how little his life can be written about, the weeks progressed with varying tales in varying states unused only because of the fact that the endings weren’t good enough for print.

The question I had asked him was quite simple, atleast at first but the more he talked about it, the more the question signified the emptiness that slowly filling his present and his past. The question being “did you become bored after a point of time?”

Hanuman Murali was a minor celebrity in his own right. That statement indicated that he certainly wasn’t able to draw crowds to the size of Shah Rukh Khan, but he had his weekly calendar quite occupied by the school functions and community gatherings; one could say that is a definition of the minor celebrity.

The Minor celebrity was like the middle class of the entertainment industry, always growing both in size and discontent, very few in the class really recognized the fact that they would never be the person they aspired to be. Many who remain to try, only do so because they aren’t content with being a minor.

But then Murali was different, he was and had been the small screen idol for many of us who grew up during the time when television hadn’t still woken up to breaking news and reality tv. Murali never had the lead role, he has made his life by playing Hanuman; but still the kids (us) would wait for him to turn up on screen, it was basically the happiness in seeing the monkey god.

I said to him during one of these walks, “the popularity of Hanuman mainly exists due to these kids, leaving aside the myth it was the sheer excitement of seeing such a powerful character, I think he is the parallel to Superman”

Murali is now a very learned man, by learned I mean not those ones who remain in their dimly lit rooms reading bound books whose titles seem alien to almost the rest of the population.

By learned I mean the kind who has seen life, and are willing to share a thought or two, he smiled a little and said “what you say may be true, but why Hanuman remains popular is because of humility, as you said he was very powerful but still remained devoted to his lord, he could have brought back Sita on his own you know…”

I don’t think we as kids never thought in the depth which included character traits such as humility, I don’t think I ever heard the word humility in the house until I turned 10, well then that’s a different story altogether.

The taming of the distant aunt

Aunts don’t visit our house on Ramanujan St, sorry let me rephrase that aunts never visit our house and the only house we have ever lived in is in Ramanujan St. I thought it was mainly due to the fact that our house was already crowded, but there was also this nagging reason which remained in the back of my mind for quite sometime.

The second reason was my grandmother, my father’s mother is also famously called the ‘red-tounged one’ the explanation behind the epithet being, the words from her mouth will actually burn the ears and other organs of the listener.

No one in my family actually spoke about this frankly speaking grandmother and we enjoyed the time when she was tranquil, quiet and a picture of grace; in other words when she slept. Many members of my family and of the human race accuse me of making a villain of others in order to earn a name as a writer, but I assure them that what I write is close to the truth at the same time it also spends some time with its good friend falsehood.

Coming back to the story of the aunt, she was quite an important one. Mother said she was important and we all believed her, the story of the coming of the aunt began to circulate our household only in the early morning of an ill-fated Saturday, since that day, the family tree was cut to pieces by that aforementioned tongue of the elderly woman. Luckily also the aunt was distant.

“I have bought the latest grinder” those words ultimately brought about the volcano in the household. The Hi-tech Grinder was one of a kind; nobody had ever heard anything like it, anything including blue metal could be reduced to dust between its blades and other novelties included a digital clock which showed the time in five different cities, a touch screen; the purpose of which the aunt herself wasn’t aware of. A music player which could store upto two thousand songs and played music according to the mood of the kitchen, it was when the music player was being explained by her, our grandmother began.

She usually positions herself in the centre of the house; the point is so exact that she could hear the sounds from each and every room in the house. Uncle Sidhu, being the man he is called it the audiometric centre

“Have some humility woman! Who do you think you are coming here and boasting about all this grinder-winder,do you think we will become jealous of all the things you have brought in your house, we are refined people, we do not talk about ourselves and my sons can afford a hundred of these grinder-winders but we wish to a simple life like what Gandhiji taught us, we even weave our own clothes and wash them ourselves, my father walked with great men of his time to win freedom from those evil men. Hayyo! Only to think of it now, we have lost all that freedom to spendthrifts like you, a grinder which plays songs it seems! Be humble and provide to the needs of others and not think of the comforts brought by the white man, it is evil” I would very much like to say what she said next, but it is not worthy of print; in some countries I might be jailed.

The aunt as expected left the house, the redness of Grandma’s tongue transferred to her cheeks, none of our family members saw her again, it is common lore that she hides behind bushes in functions common to our families and avoids those functions which do not have bushes.

We however bought ourselves the grinder-winder surprisingly on the insistence of the old lady, she had after all fancied the idea of a musical kitchen, and all that I wrote in the name of humility.