Exasperating Parents

As some strange quirks of fate, both I and Ranji have a set of parents who can be rather exasperating at times. Before anyone jumps into conclusions of the wrong sort, let me just say that they are all well-meaning, good souls. The exasperation for us kids, unfortunately, stems from the goodness of their nature. While almost all in our extended family bother about just themselves or at the most about their kids, here we have four souls who would think about the whole wide world before they take a decision. I don't know whether Dr. Manmohan Singh can do a better job at pleasing all his coalition partners.

The latest episode in this do-good saga is connected with my dad's birthday. He is turning 60 (shashtipoorthi) in May of this year, and among Malayalees, it is rather special. We had planned on this for a long time and wanted to celebrate in a big way. While I and my brother wanted to book a hall in Thrissur itself for the function, my mother wanted it to happen in Bangalore. My dad wanted his mother to be there during that day which kind of ruled out not just Bangalore but also Thrissur since she is upwards of 90 and traveling isn't such an option for her. While we were grappling with this problem of pleasing all, my maternal grandmom came up with a solution that was agreeable to all. She said my dad could spend his birth star in Painkulam with his mother and then they'll all come over to Bangalore and celebrate it yet again on his birth date.

All this happened more than 2 months back and they even booked their tickets to come here. Since none of them had seen our car, they all decided to come, including my dad and mom, brother, uncle, and maternal grandmom. We were pretty excited by it all since a visit from either of our parents is a rather rare affair. Both fathers are more committed to their mistresses - their jobs - than to their wives or children. So, even when they really want to come and visit us, they are rarely able to break away from it all. In such scenario, we were going to get a visit from both our parents in the space of 2 months, and that was indeed a cause for excitement.

The problem with bubbles are that they are always at threat of bursting, and ours burst last week. There is a cousin of ours who was slowly advancing in age (per conservative Kerala standards) with regards to marriage. Due to various factors, no proposal was clicking for her. It didn't help matters (again per conservative Kerala standards) that she had an elder sister who was almost past (as per the same standards) the age for marriage and wasn't yet ready for it. A couple of weeks back, after years of search, the younger one finally managed to get an alliance. Till now, the story is pretty good, but the twist in the tale was about to happen.

Of all the 365 days in a year, they decided to keep the engagement of this girl on the birth date of my father, when they were all supposed to be in Bangalore. Why should such a good deed be a problem? Because my cousin's parents insisted that my parents ought to be there for the engagement. My mom claims she tried pointing out that they were all planning to come to Bangalore (though I doubt it), but those feeble pointers were just brushed away by the excited relatives. That is one thing which I find exasperating among my relatives. They wouldn't care two hoots about our feelings or emotions if it had been them celebrating their birthday and us having an engagement. Since our parents strive to maintain good relations with all, they are just expected to attend each and every function in our family.

I and Ranji tried pointing out this aspect to them, but they are rather hell bent on doing the politically correct thing, which is to postpone their trip to Bangalore by a week after attending the engagement. They are worried as to what the rest of the family would feel about their absence, how it would be construed as them being uninterested in the marriage of my cousin. How or why our relatives should feel that or my parents should think they would feel that is beyond me. What I have learned the hard way is that you can never please all in the world and that there are always going to be some who aren't pleased with what you do. All that one can expect is to do what you feel is right provided it doesn't cause harm to anyone.

Then again, they are from an earlier generation where things were looked upon in a different way. Also, after initially feeling pretty angry and frustrated at it all, I thought that probably I should be going along with what makes my parents happy. I know for sure they aren't feeling too happy about postponing their trip to Bangalore for the function, but my getting angry at them was only going to make things tough for them. What makes it easier is that Ranji too has a similar set of parents who keeps their entire family before themselves. She is able to understand the entire scenario which is making things easier for me. But then, understanding an issue doesn't make it any easier to digest, I must add.