Tuesday, August 31, 2010

She's got platitude!

I'm usually a careful sort of bloke. You know, look both sides before crossing, don't volunteer for magician's tricks, give completely dishonest answers even on the most 'anonymous' surveys. So it is part of standard operating procedure to disappear when the arrival of random auntie visitors from the neighbourhood is announced. I've learned from harsh experience that to stay is to suffer for hours in a cosmix flux of recipes, platitudes, medical histories, astrological beliefs and a summary of the distasteful qualities of people not among those present.

Yesterday was a tragic slip-up. I was in the living room with my computer, sucking up the finest twitter wisdom (for example, @cgawker said "ESPN needs to hire more anchors without nostril hair", which has more pure truth in it than most religious texts) when an auntie landed up. By the time I realised something sinister was afoot, the bell had gone and the round had started.

I should actually skip all the pleasantries and cut to the chase because just listing down the pleasantries would run into a dozen blog pages. It goes something like this


"How's your dad?"

"My dad is fine"

"How's your mom?"


"My mom is fine"

"How's your brother?"


"My brother is fine"

And so on, going up to "your second cousin, the one who married the russian girl. How is he?".

I long for the day one of these aunties turns out to be a mathematician and says something like


"How is  a?"  for all a ϵ {R}  where  {R} is the set of all your living relatives.


That would be so cool! (to be continued)

11 comments:

Gargi said...

Oh God, that formula is hilarious! Please copyright it immediately!

SRK said...

Why only living relatives? After all, I have seen so many aunties discuss the ones who have passed away and assuring themselves that they too must be fine, enjoying themselves in heaven, etc etc.

Sharatchandra Bhargav said...

Haha. Hahaha. Hahahahahaha. You hit the nail on the spot with the recipes and astrological beliefs and most importantly the slicing and dicing of people not present. Looking forward to the sequel!

BTW nowadays I always seem to stumble across your blog during mid-day. Today though the sambar is going down well with sumptuous thoughts about evil aunties:).

nourish-n-cherish said...

Oh gosh - the formula was exceedingly funny! Waiting for Part 2

Scattered Thoughts... said...

ah! shorter than expected :(

Giribala said...

Superb!! Waiting for the next part...

Unknown said...

Wonderful. But I am not like that. I would rather ask, what new softwares do you have? New IDEs?

Australopithecus said...

the way i found around it, was to make up horrible horrible stories about arbit relatives...much to the chagrin of said relatives- but I was amused...and as we all know that's all that matters.

Nithin said...

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but my cousin actually got married to a russian girl..

[NpoWEr] said...

Shouldn't it be, R instead of {R}

Jals said...

All aunties have the same conversation style, it seems. All excruciatingly painful. :P