Salah Darling

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The most serious side-effect of marriage is that you tend to acquire sundry In-Laws. It is a Package Deal. Let me explain by an example:

I am nowadays hooked to Knorr's Classic Thick Tomato Soup. I just love it. Every night before she goes to bed, my wife opens one packet and makes about 4 cups of the soup. I heat them in the microwave oven as and when I like to imbibe them. I buy them by the dozen at my Marwari Uncle's Corner Store. He always keeps a stock ready for me.

Its MRP (inclusive of all taxes) is printed as Rs 35. On its top there is a bold legend: "FREE Soupy Noodles worth Rs 15 with this pack". None in our household likes those soupy needles. So, I tell my Marwari Uncle to keep the packet of FREE Soupy Noodles for himself and reduce the said amount of Rs 15 from Rs 35 and charge me Rs 20 only per packet. He looks aghast at me as if he is facing a good old bum for the first time. And he clicks his tongue and calls his wife. She takes over and tries to explain the arithmetic of sales in the modern world. Anyway, these days he knocks off Rs 7 from each packet and must be making a neat profit of Rs 15 on the whole deal.

No such haggling is allowed on your In-Laws...

I am happy I am not a Bengali. Raam-da (Prof RGC) who was fourteen years older to me and with whom I shared office for a couple of years used to always come for work in spotless Dhoti-Punjabi. Every year there came a day when he was having tilak on his forehead and he was flaunting a new shirt-and-pants-outfit. And he used to explain to me proudly that it was Jamai Shashti when the good old son-in-law is feted and dressed up properly.

Fortunately there is no such custom in our family; so it is bliss...

Of all my In-laws, my Salah Saheb (SS) is special. He is seven years younger to my wife who is seven years younger to me (I verified just now). So that makes it 14 years. When I acquired my hard-earned wife, he was just out of college having passed B Sc (Physics) from some Marathwada University (they were in Jalgaon). Much against my will, I had to go there to drop my wife for her Delivery as is the custom in our parts (Also, I couldn't entrust the job to our good old BCR Hospital at KGP). SS met me at the station and announced that he got a job as a Clerk in SBI at the tender age of 20 and he took it up, leaving Physics for good. I congratulated him appropriately (he now owns three or four houses in Vijayawada and Hyderabad unlike me).

And when the time came for me to leave for KGP, the kid brought a bora (gunny sack) and handed it over to me as a gift. He explained that he has sold all his Chemistry, Math and English books to a second-hand bookshop but he kept back his Physics Texts and Notes for my edification. By then I was already 15 years old as a Physics Teacher at KGP and he knew it. But that is what he is. And he took out his text books one by one and proudly announced their titles: Atomic Physics by J B Rajam, Properties of Matter by D S Mathur, Practical Physics by T B Tiwari....

And he lugged the bora all the way to the station and parked it neatly under the seat of my Sleeper Berth. It was rather unfortunate that someone stole it by the time I reached KGP 36 hours later.

A good decade later he visited our home at KGP for a couple of days on his way to Cal on an official visit. As you know by now, I am a keen reader of minds, and so I knew it would be fun to escort him to my best friend NP's Qrs to exhibit my potluck Salah Darling. NP has a way with him and is never ill at ease in small talk...he makes (or tries to make) every guest of his comfortable.

Here is a sliver of their conversation:

NP: Which train did you come by?

SS: Coromandel Express

NP: Very nice train...

SS: What is nice about it? It has very few stops and no Dining Car. And it reaches all Meals Stations at ugly times after their canteens are closed. I had to practically starve

NP: Yes, that is true...Madras Mail is still the best

SS: Most horrible train...it stops everywhere and there is no concept of reservation...folks get in and get out as if it is a Passenger Train

NP: I am told you work in SBI...I have all my accounts there

SS: Too bad to keep all your eggs in one basket. And it is no fun to work as a Branch Manager there. A couple of decades ago the Management came up with a Scheme called Visesh Customer. Anyone who has FDs worth Rs 5 lakhs or more were given a booklet with great diagrams showing him as a Rajah who is to be received ceremonially by the Branch Manager at the Gate and escorted and seated in his Office and all his transactions done my the Branch Manager personally. Nowadays every paan shop owner has Rs 5 lakhs FDs but still they haven't changed the Rules.

NP: I guess Private Banks like the ICICI are more up-to-date in such matters

SS: Don't talk to me about ICICI...all its employees are mere Salesmen....

I guess I have given the drift of the dialogue...till today I have been racking my brains to describe the Personality of my Salah Darling in one pithy English word....but all words failed me.

Apart from that, he really is a darling...never troubles me...and never reads my blogs...


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