episode 5 – House wife blues

Mother in Law always says when we visit;
“Lakshmi!, dish up for Luigi. You must look after your man. I did not teach you like this.”
” Luigi come please eat something.”
I must say I share Mother in Law ‘s sentiments about looking after your man. I should confess that I had different ideas in my mind of married life with Lakshmi. Laksmi, Mother in Law and two other spinster aunties living all under one roof. This Boerseun the man of the house. Sari clad women rushing all about taking special care to all my comfort and needs. Mother in Law directing the whole symphony of husband pleasing band members. A gesture in auntie Zhasmin direction would ensure just the right number of ice cubes in Luigi’s Chivas Regal another swing of the baton will tell Auntie Meera to fetch a Monte Cristo No 6. Reprimanding Laksmi tjie to make sure the Curry is not to hot but spicy for the Boerseun’s sensitive potjie kos and bisto gravy sous taste buds. After supper Mother in Law would motion the couple to the bedroom while secretly passing the dog-eared copy of the Kama Sutra to Laksmi tjie.

Things did not quite turned out that way. Laksmi is an emancipated woman who willingly let me wash dishes, hunt for my onderbroeks in the washing, put out the dirt bags and cook a supper tjie now and again. Saying: “Luigi pour us a wine there please my dear” I am actually very thankfull for it, mostly because I not yet had to ask the bank for an extended bond to built a second storey to the house for all the in laws. You bloggers have no idea how it is to live with a Mother in Law and all your wife’s unmarried spinster cousins and grandma under one roof. The constant cooking, nagging, skindering and all round busy ness will drive one to watch a five day cricket match. I understand now why there is so many holy men in India who turn to solitude and prayer doing hand stands for 100 days and bury themselves alive and walking over hot coals. I myself almost came close to puncture my lower lip with a stomp biltong knife and refuse to take of my Blue bull socks for 10 days. It was only Laksmi jie’s threat to a divorce that returned sanity to me.

So far so good