Deja vu

Women are peculiar in some ways and annoying in others.
But there are some in which they can be both.

One of such is their obsession to keep things in the 'right' place.

I was too young and innocent too realize this at first. But it was not long before I was not so young to comprehend the reason behind my dad's tensed and jittery look on some Sunday mornings. It was the deep-in-thought face of my mother staring vividly at the 7 ft Godrej cup board! And as was the ritual on Sunday mornings, she was determined to show the cup board its rightful place. In fact her thoughts on this topic were so strong that they would have surely moved the cup board itself. But seeing her husband toil against the 2 tonne cup board is a spectacle that, I guess, even, otherwise, a doting wife would not sacrifice.

Ofcourse the cup board was a mere pawn misplaced in the larger scheme of things. I was a witness to my father shifting a universe of things in our home ; right from the honorable cup board to the first photo frame painted by my mom's distant neice that hung proudly in our drawing room.

After staying away for home for 5 years, this primal fear of married men had completely escaped my mind; that is until my room-mate's parents arrived in Bangalore a perfectly normal morning to pay their son a dear visit.

Before I left for office, I discussed the fine Bangalore morning weather with my friend's smiling parents. But when I returned home in the evening, old memories came rushing back with such momentum that I was literally taken aback:

The drawing room looked slightly upset as the dining room had intruded in its place, the kitchen looked like an 'once attractive' woman who has just got an expensive face uplift and old bathroom mats were retired away to make way for young, bright ones. But the most affected was my friend's room. Till yesterday, chaos had appointed itself as dictator for life and ruler of everything that lay there! Today, order prevailed and the room looked positively sullen. I could almost sense it holding my friend's mother guilty of robbing it of its favorite past time - playing hide and seek with my friend's belongings.

And ofcourse the ultimate symbol - The 2 tonne cupboard !! It was proudly enjoying the view from it's 'rightful' place.

The triumphant look on my friend's mother face and the slightly agitated look of my friend's father was enough indicator that nothing need be said about the coup. I discussed the fine Bangalore evening weather with my friend's parents, had dinner and proceeded to my rightful place in the house - my room.

Sigh! How I wish at times that I too was a 'thing' that could find its rightful place in this world.