More Suppandis

My present domestic help is far from being the only Suppandi I have come across, and some of the stories are too good not to share. Years back, at my office, we had a security guard named Pyarey Lal. A thin, weedy-looking specimen with reedy voice to match.

Once one of the girls in office had complained that the cab driver had tried to act fresh when he dropped her home late at night from work. So the head of the office issued a diktat that if any girl worked later than 8 p.m., one of the security guards would escort her home in the cab. One night, I was working till about 3 a.m. editing a film. It being winter, the night was bitterly dark by the time I finished work so I called up the guard from the studio and told him he'd have to drop me home. Of course, with my luck, the guard on duty was Pyarey Lal.
"Who said I have to drop you home?"
"The head of the office"
"How far is your place?"
"Half an hour"
"Goodness gracious, you expect me to travel back alone in a taxi at this hour of night after dropping you home? No way!"
I figured in the case of an attack, I'd be better equipped to defend myself if I was alone rather than have him with me!
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One of A's clients had an irritating habit of calling after 6 p.m. on a Friday or the eve of a holiday to load him up with work on his days off. One week, A was rather fed-up and when she called, instructed Pyarey Lal to tell her he was not in office. Of course, this was way back before mobile phones, blackberries and emails.
Pyarey Lal had an earnest confab with the client and turned to us with a worried face:
"She's saying it's urgent."
"Please tell her I am not in office and you have no way of contacting me."
Pyarey Lal goes back to the telephone...
"Sir, I told her you are not here but that you have got the message and will call her in half an hour!"
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Once A was in his cabin having a discussion with a colleague about some client issue. The colleague strolled out to freshen up and hadn't returned for a good 15 minutes so A poked his head out of the cabin and asked Pyarey Lal: "Where is S sahib?"
Pyarey Lal: "He is sitting in your cabin talking to you!"
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Then there's the famous CPWD or Central Public Works Department, which used to be responsible for the maintenance of our house back when dad was in government service. One day, dad and I were heading out of the house when we saw a CPWD worker diligently working away at the hinges of our front door.
Us: "What are you doing?"
Workman: "We are replacing these old doors with new ones, as per the department order."
We looked around and didn't spot any new door lying there.
Us: "So where's the new door?"
Workman: "My job is to take out the old doors. That's the job of another department. They'll install the new door within 2-3 days!"

Cross-posted at we are like this only

Tales of Suppandi

Suppandi is the mythical hero of a series of funny south Indian traditional folk tales. Suppandi is a simpleton who inevitably gets things wrong and makes the weirdest and funniest mistakes. A couple of posts back I had mentioned my maid who appears to be a near-relative of his and one of my blog readers said they used to call their old maid Suppandi. I've decided to adopt the monicker for mine, as she fits the bill so well.

Yesterday, Puddi was to spend the night at my parents' house. I asked Suppandi to bring her pajamas, bottle and a diaper. Suppandi brought the items one by one - but of course - and laid a trail of them all across the drawing room. "No, put them in a bag". "Bag?" "Yes, you know - bag? Plastic or cloth one?"

Suppandi went off and came back with a cotton bag and Chubbocks pajamas, and promptly started putting his pajamas into the bag. "No, Suppandi, Puddi is going, not Chubbocks, so you need to put in Puddi's clothes and stuff." She took out Chubbocks' pajamas, laid them on the arm of the rocking chair, then promptly started folding them and putting them back into the bag.

"Suppandi, Puddi is going. You need to put in Puddi's Dora pajamas, which are lying here on the table, her diaper and her bottle. Chubbocks is not going; don't pack his stuff."

Pause. Chubbocks clothes come out of the bag and go back on the arm of the rocking chair. Pause again.

Chubbocks clothes are again taken off the arm of the rocking chair, folded and put into the bag. That's when my BP spikes to a dangerous level. "Suppandi, I just told you three times in the last five minutes that you need to pack Puddi's things and not Chubbocks!"

Suppandi withdraws with Chubbocks pajamas and bag in tow and fails to return. Eventually, my parents carry Puddi's stuff home in their hands.

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Later last night...

I was in the throes of agonizing pelvic pain yesterday thanks to the effects of the hormone relaxin. I had been unable to sleep all night or during the day, no amount of analgesic gels had helped and I had literally cried with pain. I decided to try a hot water bottle at night and since our house is still in a shambles due to the move, sent Suppandi over to my parents' house to borrow theirs.

"Suppandi, can you heat a steel pan full of water? When it is hot, please pour the water into the red rubber thing you just brought from my parents' house."

Suppandi goes away with a puzzled look on her face. A and I decide discretion is the better part of valour, so we ask her to show us what she got from my parents' place. She comes back with a small steel box full of kesar which my grandmom had given me a few days ago to have with milk!

"Is this what You just brought back from my parents' house? Where's the big red rubber thing?"

Suppandi goes away looking totally bamboozled.

Finally A gets up, goes into the kitchen and hands her the hot water bottle which she has kept upon the kitchen counter in plain sight a few minutes back!

Weird Relatives

I saw this guy with the weirdest comb-over the other day. He's an old guy, I think owns the hospital I was visiting my doctor at and has snow-white hair. He's totally bald on top and sides, and only has hair growing out of the base of his head. So does he cut it short and just enjoy the breeze? No sirree, he grows the back hair long ( about a foot long, I'm not kidding), parts it in two like we would for 2 pigtails, and then carefully combs each side upwards and forwards so it covers the sides and top and comes to rest on his forehead. Donald trump would love this!

Looking at him reminded me of a weird cousin of dad's and one memory led to another and so I decided to start this blog tag rolling for whoever wants to pick it up - blog about a funny story involving weird behaviour on the part of one of your relatives. Hey - our kids gotta know where the madness comes from, right?

So - this cousin of my dad's - He's been a laid-back kind of guy all his life. Doesn;t work. Has two doting sisters who used to slave for him and have him their hard-earned salaries. He got married to a nice lady when he was about 40, and she's smart as a whip and a teacher so she's supporting him now...That's not even the weirdness I'm talking about.

He was attending my sister's wedding. He's been going bald for years and I guess the last remaining hair had given up the ghost so he'd bought himself a strange toupee. Dad was extremely busy overseeing wedding preparations and preoccupied so he didn't immediately notice that this cousin was in front of him. The cousin thought Dad didn't recognise him because of the new toupee, so he lifts it off his head about 6 inches to show his shiny bald pate and says, "Hey, it's me!"

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Another of dad's cousins ( how come all the weirdos I remember are from his side?) used to be this cool dude who hung out with movie stars in Mumbai and went to Singapore way back in the early 80s to sightsee. Somehow he ended up marrying a girl straight out of well, not a village, but the back of beyond, anyhow. She was nice but not hip...

Once she happened to be visiting my aunt in Mysore when she fell ill. My aunt took her to the family doc who said she needed an injection of some sort and told her to get ready for the injection while the doctor prepared it.

When my aunt and the doc turned back to the cousin's wife with the injection, I'm surprised they didn't need glucose - the lady, instead of pulling down her petticoat a little, had chosen to lift that and her saree all the way up above her waist.

My aunt can only say, "Thank God the family doc was a woman!"