Autobiography Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Relatives Unlimited

I started believing in God after counting the number of relatives I had. Like him, they are omnipresent, and infinite. Unlike him, they are visible. I have benefited from this plethora of relations in many ways. Wherever I went, I would have an aunt or a cousin or a nephew to stay with. For example, I stayed with a nephew, Suren, at IIT Delhi’s Aravalli hostel when I went for an interview with the India Today group in 1984. Countless times, I stayed with various cousins and aunts in Mumbai, Pune, Baroda, Indore, Nagpur and so on. This continued even in the U.S., where we visited New York and stayed with a cousin. Niagara Falls, yet another cousin. And so on. Right now, I have relatives (and friends) in so many places in the U.S. that it seems like a second home, though I have been away for almost two decades.

Excess of relatives in one place can be a bit of a problem, though. I remember when I got married, both our families were in Pune. It was a competitive brood of relatives on both sides who fought for our attention, and wanted to feed us (lunch or dinner, no less). So we used to go on a Pune darshan every other day whenever we visited. This happened to a smaller degree on one of our trips to Nagpur, as we had a lot of friends there.

Hyderabad is another city where we have a few relatives, all of whom are impossible to see in a weekend. So we ration out our visits. We visit relatives A and B at one time, and C and D the next time. I like this system, because it reduces everybody’s stress levels. That must be the reason why our government was such a great advocate of rationing- they did it for 45 years after independence. It took a sardar (Dr. Singh) to do the unthinkable, and break free from supply side constraints. We still do it in education, putting all kinds of restrictions (like whether to teach in English or Kannada) on schools, colleges, and even the IIMs (they cannot decide whether to go to Singapore or New Mumbai without some joker in the central government bureaucracy/ministry giving them their blessings).

Kolkata is probably the only large city where no known relatives (mine) exist. Maybe that’s because Bongs won’t let them survive. I have nothing against Bongs, but it is somewhat difficult to live in Kolkata for too long unless you were born there. I have actually visited Kolkata several times, and liked the place. Particularly the way commies co-exist with “dirty” capitalists and do everything that capitalists do, without batting an eyelid. Talking, rather than doing, is a national pastime, and probably Bongs are just a little better at it than the rest of us. If words could be converted into electricity, we would not have a power cut in our lifetime. Another good thing about Bongs is their zest for gulping down whisky. Smoking too, seems a passion, and it probably goes well with discussions about Karl Marx, but I would not call it a good thing.

Anyway, I am digressing. Back to relatives. My mother had six sisters and a brother. Each of these had several offspring, and ancestors through marriage, and so on. Our summer vacations were spent remembering the names of these assorted relatives of various sizes, ages and shapes. My brother had mugged up some names in the form of tables that he constructed, like we memorize maths/number tables.

Whenever a cousin was to get married, up until the early eighties, we all used to take off and reach the venue in large numbers. Reservations were unheard of in small towns, and so we did not wait for one. Roughed it out, spent many nights sitting on trunks (metal suitcases) in train corridors, dodging, bribing and begging Ticket Examiners. It seems almost impossible that we can pull it off today. Of course, the options today have increased manifold, particularly the flight options. I am not sure if the urge to travel remains at the old levels, though.

Most cousins of my age group today are in their forties and fifties, but strangely, we still meet in a fairly regular way, and also have a group on the net that we communicate on. Maybe this reduces the need to physically run around. Technology has its uses, even if Nero Wolfe disagrees.

My parents were quite progressive, and did not really mollycoddle me in any way, that I remember. I find that I became fairly independent minded in boarding school, which I joined in seventh standard. Though the atmosphere there was strict, it taught you to do many things on your own. In college, hostel life also forced me to structure my time independent of anyone’s advice, and again that was a great help. I feel those who stayed at home all the time may have missed out on the independence, bacause parents normally tend to take too many decisions on behalf of their children, more often than not.

Relatives came in all sizes and shapes and attitudes, so that gave me a wide exposure to different personality types. From a strict-looking household of my senior most aunt, where a lot of religious activity was a part of daily routine, to the almost anarchic lifestyles of some cousins, I saw it all. In fact, we may have a record for marriages of all kinds among our generation. We have a cousin who is married to a Parsee, another to a German, one to an American, and a nephew to a Pole (a girl from Poland, I mean). Intercaste marriages within India have been fairly commonplace among our cousins as well. All in all, we have a mini-Bharat in our conclaves.

Naturally, our food habits are all mixed up as well, as colourful and diverse as all the different areas we come from/have lived in. From burgers and pizzas to Puranpoli and idli-vada, we have it all. We enjoy almost every foodstuff known to mankind. Or at least, we have tried it a couple of times. Of course, it is a bit difficult to like German bread, but maybe it’s an acquired taste.

There have been an awful lot of teachers in my family, and I hope that is not the cause of our nation’s intellectual decline. But my grandfather (mom’s side) was a professor of philosophy in the days when it was a respectable subject. Abstract maybe, but respectable. Management had not made its mark as an academic discipline yet. But strangely, in our generation, my brother, sister and I, all gravitated to the management field for either an MBA or Ph.D.