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When two adults start living together, temporarily or permanently, there are bound to be issues between them. This is true even if both are saints or both criminals.
In the 1950s there was this rule in our Andhra University Hostels at Vizagh: all rooms were either single rooms or 3-seaters; never a double room.There was much wisdom in it. The third tends to act as moderator or facilitator when two start fighting each other. It is only rarely that two of them ganged up and ragged the third consistently...which happened when the third one was a case or the two wanted to live in sin.
The advent of a temporary guest is also tiresome if he happens to be needlessly helpful where help is unwelcome.
When I was living in a fabulously furnished single room in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP in 1974, an old friend of mine arrived as a guest for a couple of days on his way to the North East where he was employed as an Army Officer. There was a guest-cot available on request and so it was no problem accommodating him in my room. We had a splendid Sunday chatting and moving around but on the Monday morning I had an important lecture class to take and so I gave him a couple of my Wodehouses and a flask of coffee and told him I would be back in a couple of hours.
I was writing my Ph D thesis then and so my work table was full of papers. And I forgot to warn him not to touch it. So, when I returned, I found this chap smiling a warm welcome...he had spent the time 'organizing' my table. And I almost fainted. For, my table had its own order in my peculiar way...there were reprints, papers, slips, figures, tables, chits, back-of-the envelope calculations, and reference books...all of which appeared to be randomly thrown around to his Army Eyes...It took me 2 full days after he left to get them back to their original state of disorder.
The same gent came as my guest a few years later when I had shifted to Qrs C1-97 in the fond hope of getting married by and by. And was living alone in that vast Qrs. And this time I took care not to leave him alone in my Qrs when I went out to my lecture classes. I used to drag him along and make him sit in our Central Library for the nonce.
When we both returned home in the evening hoping to have welcome baths before our dinner, I found that all the buckets and drum were empty. For, I had forgotten to warn him not to close the taps. We then had scarce water supply which used to arrive in fits and starts for half an hour in the day at unpredictable times. And the rule was to keep the taps always open. This guy took his bath and filled up the bucket and drum when water was on, and closed all the taps before emerging in the morning, not to waste water which he thought was 24/7. And the maid who arrived during our absence (she had access to a spare key to the house) used up all the water for washing utensils, clothes, and floor, and left...thinking that, as usual, all taps were open and so the buckets and drums would get duly filled up to overflowing at lunch time or whenever...
These Army chaps ought to be closely watched always...
When I bought my Maruti matchbox car at KGP and drove it for five long years there, I never had occasion to use its parking brake. The terrain at KGP was flat and I had my own way of negotiating the few ups and downs on the road by manipulating the clutch and throttle simultaneously. So I kept up that habit in Hyderabad as well after I arrived here and started driving again.
A couple of years ago, I invited my didi and her IAS hubby to our home for lunch and told them that I would fetch them and drop them back at the place where they were staying. And my B-i-L was sitting by my side in the front seat while my didi and her help were relaxing in the back.
And we came to this little gradient near the Ameerpet crossing and my engine stalled for a bit. And as I was restarting it my own way, my B-i-L in the front seat tried helping me by pulling hard on the parking brake. And I couldn't swear at my honored guest. But knew we were in for trouble. For, I had a suspicion that, out of utter disuse for a decade and more, the parking brake must have rusted and got jammed. And my fears came true duly when we couldn't release it for love or money. So, I had to stop the car in the honking traffic, get out and fetch a suitable stone by the wayside and hammer it into submission...phew!
Thus far go the Good Samaritans as needless helpers...
The less said about divorces the better...most of those that happen soon after marriage are due to things that look trivial to onlookers but not to the parties involved.
I know of a case when a Telugu bridegroom, eminently suitable, married a Telugu bride, equally eminent, and their marriage busted within a fortnight.
I asked the groom, who was my friend, how so.
And he narrated to me the utter unreasonableness of his erstwhile wife. Apparently the groom and his widowed mom were staying together when the bride joined them. The groom was born and brought up in Maharashtra and so he and his mom used to converse in Marathi when they were not on their guard. Otherwise their mother tongue was Telugu at which both were fairly proficient.
But the bride was born and brought up in the heart of AP and knew no Marathi.
And when she joined them, the wife and husband would talk in Telugu. So did the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. But when the hubby and his mom were together, they would slip into their Marathi, and would switch to Telugu when the wife joined them and stared...
My friend insisted that he and his mom were not talking any secrets in Marathi but it was just their habit. But his wife didn't think so, and left them after a fortnight, never to return...
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...A couple has just moved from one house to another, say, and the husband has been asked to help put things away. As the things are taken out of trunks, the wife knows instantly where they go, not only the things she is going to use and wants put where she can get at them, but the things for which she has no immediate use and wishes stored away for the winter or summer, as the case may be. A woman can instantly tell whether a given article belongs in the attic or in the basement. All objects fall into one or the other of these two categories. For example, while I myself am not an expert at it, I am aware that anything framed or having wire attached to it goes to the attic, and that most containers and the like, especially those made of metal, go to the basement. A woman comes naturally by this ability to discriminate. She knows most of it by intuition and the rest she has learned from her mother. But to suppose that a husband should know, offhand, whether a chest of drawers with woolens or dimity in it goes to the attic or the basement is ridiculous. You might as well expect him to understand, without long, careful instruction, why one tea towel is used for china and another for glassware. The thing for a wife to do, then, is not to upbraid or rebuff her husband when she finds him tired and worn in the attic, sitting among a lot of things that should have been taken to the basement, but simply say nothing, or, better yet, compliment him on his strength and agility and then, next day, hire a handy man to shift the things to where they belong. Adherence to a few simple rules of solicitude and understanding would prevent nine husbands out of ten, no matter how passionately dedicated to liberty they may be, from falling victims to the dread of claustrophobia which every year takes its heavy toll of male minds as the result of carelessness or stupidity of wives.
...James Thurber
When two adults start living together, temporarily or permanently, there are bound to be issues between them. This is true even if both are saints or both criminals.
In the 1950s there was this rule in our Andhra University Hostels at Vizagh: all rooms were either single rooms or 3-seaters; never a double room.There was much wisdom in it. The third tends to act as moderator or facilitator when two start fighting each other. It is only rarely that two of them ganged up and ragged the third consistently...which happened when the third one was a case or the two wanted to live in sin.
The advent of a temporary guest is also tiresome if he happens to be needlessly helpful where help is unwelcome.
When I was living in a fabulously furnished single room in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP in 1974, an old friend of mine arrived as a guest for a couple of days on his way to the North East where he was employed as an Army Officer. There was a guest-cot available on request and so it was no problem accommodating him in my room. We had a splendid Sunday chatting and moving around but on the Monday morning I had an important lecture class to take and so I gave him a couple of my Wodehouses and a flask of coffee and told him I would be back in a couple of hours.
I was writing my Ph D thesis then and so my work table was full of papers. And I forgot to warn him not to touch it. So, when I returned, I found this chap smiling a warm welcome...he had spent the time 'organizing' my table. And I almost fainted. For, my table had its own order in my peculiar way...there were reprints, papers, slips, figures, tables, chits, back-of-the envelope calculations, and reference books...all of which appeared to be randomly thrown around to his Army Eyes...It took me 2 full days after he left to get them back to their original state of disorder.
The same gent came as my guest a few years later when I had shifted to Qrs C1-97 in the fond hope of getting married by and by. And was living alone in that vast Qrs. And this time I took care not to leave him alone in my Qrs when I went out to my lecture classes. I used to drag him along and make him sit in our Central Library for the nonce.
When we both returned home in the evening hoping to have welcome baths before our dinner, I found that all the buckets and drum were empty. For, I had forgotten to warn him not to close the taps. We then had scarce water supply which used to arrive in fits and starts for half an hour in the day at unpredictable times. And the rule was to keep the taps always open. This guy took his bath and filled up the bucket and drum when water was on, and closed all the taps before emerging in the morning, not to waste water which he thought was 24/7. And the maid who arrived during our absence (she had access to a spare key to the house) used up all the water for washing utensils, clothes, and floor, and left...thinking that, as usual, all taps were open and so the buckets and drums would get duly filled up to overflowing at lunch time or whenever...
These Army chaps ought to be closely watched always...
When I bought my Maruti matchbox car at KGP and drove it for five long years there, I never had occasion to use its parking brake. The terrain at KGP was flat and I had my own way of negotiating the few ups and downs on the road by manipulating the clutch and throttle simultaneously. So I kept up that habit in Hyderabad as well after I arrived here and started driving again.
A couple of years ago, I invited my didi and her IAS hubby to our home for lunch and told them that I would fetch them and drop them back at the place where they were staying. And my B-i-L was sitting by my side in the front seat while my didi and her help were relaxing in the back.
And we came to this little gradient near the Ameerpet crossing and my engine stalled for a bit. And as I was restarting it my own way, my B-i-L in the front seat tried helping me by pulling hard on the parking brake. And I couldn't swear at my honored guest. But knew we were in for trouble. For, I had a suspicion that, out of utter disuse for a decade and more, the parking brake must have rusted and got jammed. And my fears came true duly when we couldn't release it for love or money. So, I had to stop the car in the honking traffic, get out and fetch a suitable stone by the wayside and hammer it into submission...phew!
Thus far go the Good Samaritans as needless helpers...
The less said about divorces the better...most of those that happen soon after marriage are due to things that look trivial to onlookers but not to the parties involved.
I know of a case when a Telugu bridegroom, eminently suitable, married a Telugu bride, equally eminent, and their marriage busted within a fortnight.
I asked the groom, who was my friend, how so.
And he narrated to me the utter unreasonableness of his erstwhile wife. Apparently the groom and his widowed mom were staying together when the bride joined them. The groom was born and brought up in Maharashtra and so he and his mom used to converse in Marathi when they were not on their guard. Otherwise their mother tongue was Telugu at which both were fairly proficient.
But the bride was born and brought up in the heart of AP and knew no Marathi.
And when she joined them, the wife and husband would talk in Telugu. So did the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. But when the hubby and his mom were together, they would slip into their Marathi, and would switch to Telugu when the wife joined them and stared...
My friend insisted that he and his mom were not talking any secrets in Marathi but it was just their habit. But his wife didn't think so, and left them after a fortnight, never to return...
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