Family Problems

It was like any other night. Everyone was sleeping peacefully, when all of a sudden, from the adjacent room mom rushed out with her bed sheet and slumped in the hall, pretending to sleep. Dad came out of the same room apologizing profusely and asked mom to come back and sleep in the bedroom. Their teenage son whined out of his bedroom and asked everyone to shut up, while his younger brother stared blankly at the entire scene. In spite of dad’s pleadings, mom was stubborn. She said that she wouldn’t sleep in the bedroom if dad kept talking to his girlfriend……..

I live in a very queer place. I live in a huge apartment with four other guys. But despite the fact that they are just four normal guys, when they are all together, they fuse into one typical nuclear family. There is a dad, a mom, a spoilt elder son with teenage problems and the younger son who lives in the shadow of his elder brother.

The dad is a very typical dad. Just like we never knew our dad’s age (‘cos all the information we needed was that he was just dad and he was old) no one in my apartment knows his age, but he has claimed to be thirty for around 3 years. Like every typical family, everyone assumes that he would pay the monthly bills (which he would), plan some weekend activity and bring home some candy that he got in his office that day. And not surprisingly, he asks everyone how their day was and mysteriously disappears into his room at 9:00pm claiming some ‘office’ work.

The mom isn’t much of a ‘mom’ mom. I.e. (s)he doesn’t care about you like our moms do, but he does all the other activities that we have all seen our moms do. He is home all day. Whenever you come home, he is there for you. And, he just cannot resist watching serials on the Television. He follows about 4 to 5 serials and discusses every plot with miraculous clarity. I say miraculous because, any other topic of discussion other than TV series would project him as a seemingly dull person. And since he is home all the time, he is almost always on the phone gossiping, while claiming to do preposterous part-time activities. In addition, like so many homes, in spite of everything being spick and span, ‘mom’ keeps cleaning stuff ( and also folds clothes, arranges used plastic bags, irons clothes, sweeps the floor etc) all the time. But unfortunately, he is like a House Fly (and a house wife), because even though he cleans himself and his surroundings, somehow everything around him is haphazard and dirty.

The spoilt elder son is a very interesting character. He is the tallest in the ‘family’ (like most first borns) but cowers when he stands in front of ‘dad’. But ‘dad’ has a special corner for his eldest son and believes that he would make it big in this nasty world. I should mention that he is about 22 years old, but by heart he is yet to get out of high-school. Like a classic teenager, he has amazing mood swings and plays loud Hip-hop music (‘mom’ hates it when he plays loud music and laments loudly to his ‘husband’). One second he is making jokes and laughing and the next second he becomes the broody type. He thinks that no one gives him importance and often complains about his life. And yes… his sense of humor. His type of humor revolves only around anatomical parts. Any mention of the lower abdomen, the ‘bottom’ or ‘people who make owl like sounds’ evokes instant laughter and gets classified as a ‘Wery Funny Jhoke yaar’.

The youngest son dotes on his elder brother. He thinks his brother is coolest guy around and he does almost anything his brother tells him to do. He is not very out-spoken and mentioning the words ‘girl friend’ guarantees instant blushing. And like younger sons, his true character isn’t revealed that much, because he is always shadowed by his ‘family’ members.

There are often by-the-book scenarios that take place. For instance, the dad often complains to mom that he spends too much, while mom claims that he buys only stuff needed for home. The elder son randomly talks about business and marketing, while a beaming dad listens to him with genuine pride. The mom keeps asking her youngest son if everything’s alright and keeps handing over food which he receives without a word of protest. (“You are so thin! Eat some of this. You will become nice and healthy”)

But this family is going to break soon. Dad is planning to marry his long time girl friend in Mumbai and would soon abandon this house which he got from mom. I hate to see moms cry and it sure would be heart breaking to witness the day when dad leaves the family.

If you are wondering what role I play in this apartment, then here it is. I play the irritating guest who has no intention of leaving the house in the near future. I grab stuff from the fridge, empty milk cartons, come home during unearthly hours, make loud noises, crack bad jokes, write blog posts about the family with whom he is living and… well, you know how irritating guests are.

Disclaimer: If you are my roomie and you are reading this, make sure you fill up the fridge, ‘cos we are running short of milk, tomatoes, onions, bananas, dhal and roti.