Kishore Singh: Relative clauses

Would he or wouldn’t he? On previous visits home from America, my brother-in-law hadn’t bothered to visit us, leave alone stay with us, preferring to head straight to his in-laws’ home in Jaipur, leading to some unworthy but nevertheless enlightening comments on the subject of his relationship with his wife. Now here he was, five years later, and my wife was upset. “You sent the driver to pick up your sister,” she complained, “but my brother has to come to our home on his own.”

Till then, I’d no idea that my brother-in-law and his unfairly maligned spouse would in fact be calling on us fully intent on staying for a couple of days. Could we send the driver to pick the guests from the station? We couldn’t because the car had been requisitioned by my sister who was coincidentally spending a few days with us just then, and was off attending a wedding. “Now I guess I’ll have to cook them dinner,” my wife continued – though she had to have known that her clan was visiting – “thankfully I won’t have to cater for your sister.” This last comment was caused by the vegetarian and, alas, teetotalling nature of her sibling and his wife, which tended to make mealtimes with them a little tedious, but I was able to bribe the cook into ensuring that there was other than root and shoot on the table — and just as well because, having paid her courtesy call, my sister decided to come back early and join us for dinner at home, even though she’d travelled all the way from Ahmedabad to have that one meal out.

 

Sleeping arrangements caused some domestic upheaval, leading both children to grumble at being evicted from their bedrooms. Firmly middle-aged, all the guests were fixed on their choice of personal menus, insisting on Pepsi when there was Coke, tea that was cooked instead of steeped, coffee that was instant, not percolated, popping medicines for everything from headaches to stomach upsets, and contributing to a pile of linen that would take days of washing and, given the city’s rainy weather, drying, before it could be stowed away for use by the next round of guests — barely a week later.

My daughter was upset because someone used up her expensive shea butter, my son hid away his colognes, my sister said she couldn’t find her hair conditioner, soaps, shampoos and creams got exchanged, and someone let the shaving foam drip all over the floor. My sister sulked because my wife and her brother shut themselves into a room to gossip, the children disappeared to their offices and sanity, and I sneaked away when my wife suggested a family outing and movie. With so many mouths to feed, my wife decided I had to find time from work to take the two sides of the clan out for lunch, where my brother-in-law and his wife kept popping pills to tropicalise their stomachs so they weren’t done out of their treat, and when they left, my sister, who’s normally timid, surprisingly agreed to accompany us on a night out in the city, so we went party-cruising instead of sensibly staying home, given we had work the following morning while those on holiday could relax late into the day.

And now my wife says it’s her turn to go visiting – why should she always have to entertain others? – and she’s okay if I can’t go, she has a full list and enough insider knowledge on how to even scores.