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After considerable study and experience I framed a few rules on teachers and the taught. I find them to be universally valid here (in India) and there (In America) but for occasional dishonorable exceptions.
The first and foremost rule is that a husband should never try to teach his wife. Never. Their skill sets and interests and equipment are all different, and there are more important things for a husband to get from his wife than a willing student.
Listen to this story told by my Father who knew his wife well enough:
One day Arjun was excited about the new trick (like solving that insidious Rubik's Cube) that he learned: how to crack and enter, destroy, and safely exit from what is variously called Padma Vyuh or Chakra Vyuh (intricate formations of jawans, chariots, horses, elephants and ponies).
And he couldn't contain himself and ran to his bedroom where he found his wife, Subhadra, viewing the saans-bahu soap reclining on her bed. And he erupted:
"Listen! I did it!"
"Did what?"
"I cracked the Padma Vyuh!"
"Oh! The roast chicken is in the top shelf of the fridge. And I am feeling sleepy"
Arjun ought to have taken the hint and gone away to his B-i-L, Krishna, for their appointed golf match. But he didn't. He started narrating his discovery and found his wife cooing: "Ooon! Ooon!! Ooon!!!"
After a while, Krishna came down in search of Arjun and dragged him away. Apparently Subhadra was sound asleep all the while and the Ooon sounds were being emitted by their baby, Abhimanyu, in her womb. The chap therefore got to know only half the strategy, viz how to enter the Vyuh, but didn't get to know how to quit...and got subsequently trapped and killed.
Sigh!
I made the similar mistake of trying to talk excitedly about Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to my wife who fell sound asleep half way through (like my MSc students). So my son of a fun, who was in her womb then, got to know only the Relativity part and got scared of QM and so preferred chemistry. And his teachers of chemistry in the KV, IIT KGP, also seemed to have had a similar experience in their moms' wombs. They taught my son how to calculate the mass of a photon of energy 100 MeV using the Einstein formula: (E = mc^2), a shameful thing to do.
In a similar vein, but for altogether different reasons, no husband ought to try and learn anything worthwhile from his wife. These reasons again have to do with psychology, if not psychiatry.
Wives are always suspicious of their hubbies. And the few things they know (and their hubbies want to know from them) are their trump cards. They wouldn't ever wish to leak them out and thereby lose their feminine enigma.
For instance, I found soon after my marriage that my wife was a wonderful cook with many Madhva recipes that even my mom (a Dravida) didn't know. I was particularly enamored of the coconut chutney she used to make. And one day I asked her to teach me how to make it...I myself being a cook of sorts, having had to cook, and feed myself, for half a dozen years during my long bachelorhood.
My wife hummed and hawed and finally said it was very easy and anyone could do it:
"Just break a coconut and throw away the shell (pretty elementary lesson). Then cut the tender coconut halves into several small pieces (without cutting your fingers and running to me for Dettol and bandage). Then dump the pieces into the big jar of the mixie (don't forget to cap it before switching it on). Keep adding spoonfuls of water as needed (don't pour pour pour). And when the thing is thickly syrupy, take it out, add salt, chilli powder, and the standard masala fried in sesame oil (without burning the stuff into charcoal). That's all there is to it!"
And then I said to myself "Easy!" like my students used to do with the 555 timer till they burnt them out one by one and got thrown out by Tarapada-da.
And I tried the recipe and found it wasn't at all like what she used to make...the punch was missing. Like a good student I asked her to repeat the procedure and she repeated it verbatim:
"Just break a coconut and throw away the shell (pretty easy lesson)..."
My second attempt was even less of a success.
And I guessed she was hiding something vital from me and snooped on her when she next made her chutney.
And then I confronted her:
"You didn't tell me that I have to add a pinch of tamarind in the mixie and a bit of hing in the masala!!!"
And she turned back and whipped:
"Shame on you and your ilk for spying on a trusting wife! And now I guess you will reveal all to your loving mom!"
And didn't talk to me for the next hour till I promised to keep her recipe a solemn secret till Death does us part...
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After considerable study and experience I framed a few rules on teachers and the taught. I find them to be universally valid here (in India) and there (In America) but for occasional dishonorable exceptions.
The first and foremost rule is that a husband should never try to teach his wife. Never. Their skill sets and interests and equipment are all different, and there are more important things for a husband to get from his wife than a willing student.
Listen to this story told by my Father who knew his wife well enough:
One day Arjun was excited about the new trick (like solving that insidious Rubik's Cube) that he learned: how to crack and enter, destroy, and safely exit from what is variously called Padma Vyuh or Chakra Vyuh (intricate formations of jawans, chariots, horses, elephants and ponies).
And he couldn't contain himself and ran to his bedroom where he found his wife, Subhadra, viewing the saans-bahu soap reclining on her bed. And he erupted:
"Listen! I did it!"
"Did what?"
"I cracked the Padma Vyuh!"
"Oh! The roast chicken is in the top shelf of the fridge. And I am feeling sleepy"
Arjun ought to have taken the hint and gone away to his B-i-L, Krishna, for their appointed golf match. But he didn't. He started narrating his discovery and found his wife cooing: "Ooon! Ooon!! Ooon!!!"
After a while, Krishna came down in search of Arjun and dragged him away. Apparently Subhadra was sound asleep all the while and the Ooon sounds were being emitted by their baby, Abhimanyu, in her womb. The chap therefore got to know only half the strategy, viz how to enter the Vyuh, but didn't get to know how to quit...and got subsequently trapped and killed.
Sigh!
I made the similar mistake of trying to talk excitedly about Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to my wife who fell sound asleep half way through (like my MSc students). So my son of a fun, who was in her womb then, got to know only the Relativity part and got scared of QM and so preferred chemistry. And his teachers of chemistry in the KV, IIT KGP, also seemed to have had a similar experience in their moms' wombs. They taught my son how to calculate the mass of a photon of energy 100 MeV using the Einstein formula: (E = mc^2), a shameful thing to do.
In a similar vein, but for altogether different reasons, no husband ought to try and learn anything worthwhile from his wife. These reasons again have to do with psychology, if not psychiatry.
Wives are always suspicious of their hubbies. And the few things they know (and their hubbies want to know from them) are their trump cards. They wouldn't ever wish to leak them out and thereby lose their feminine enigma.
For instance, I found soon after my marriage that my wife was a wonderful cook with many Madhva recipes that even my mom (a Dravida) didn't know. I was particularly enamored of the coconut chutney she used to make. And one day I asked her to teach me how to make it...I myself being a cook of sorts, having had to cook, and feed myself, for half a dozen years during my long bachelorhood.
My wife hummed and hawed and finally said it was very easy and anyone could do it:
"Just break a coconut and throw away the shell (pretty elementary lesson). Then cut the tender coconut halves into several small pieces (without cutting your fingers and running to me for Dettol and bandage). Then dump the pieces into the big jar of the mixie (don't forget to cap it before switching it on). Keep adding spoonfuls of water as needed (don't pour pour pour). And when the thing is thickly syrupy, take it out, add salt, chilli powder, and the standard masala fried in sesame oil (without burning the stuff into charcoal). That's all there is to it!"
And then I said to myself "Easy!" like my students used to do with the 555 timer till they burnt them out one by one and got thrown out by Tarapada-da.
And I tried the recipe and found it wasn't at all like what she used to make...the punch was missing. Like a good student I asked her to repeat the procedure and she repeated it verbatim:
"Just break a coconut and throw away the shell (pretty easy lesson)..."
My second attempt was even less of a success.
And I guessed she was hiding something vital from me and snooped on her when she next made her chutney.
And then I confronted her:
"You didn't tell me that I have to add a pinch of tamarind in the mixie and a bit of hing in the masala!!!"
And she turned back and whipped:
"Shame on you and your ilk for spying on a trusting wife! And now I guess you will reveal all to your loving mom!"
And didn't talk to me for the next hour till I promised to keep her recipe a solemn secret till Death does us part...
...Posted by Ishani
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