There is this riddle about two fathers and two sons and there are three seats in a train and all of them get a seat. How? Antu asked me this once. I gave her the simple answer that there was a grandfather, a father and a son. But I guess its deeper than that simple answer. My father is visiting us. My mom visited us in May and exhausted her visa and finally dad agreed to come after lot of nagging and whining and complaining. (all by Antu!) Anyway, Mom also gallivanted to Canada to visit my cousin (her peraadha pullai*, in her own words!) and is kooch-icooing with her grand niece much to Antus jealousy. (fine! I am jealous too! But only a little.)
Anyway, back to my fathers trip. He has been here for a few weeks. Antu is over the moon and spends every waking minute with him. Ashu smiles and laughs a lot more than usual and is so patient and so nice and kind to him that I am both proud and sad at the same time. Things were all fine for the first two weeks when I kept my mouth shut and ignored everything and did nt say a word against Ashu, the only person my dad would save even if its her against the rest of his entire family! The one day I lost my patience, all hell broke loose. I was the mother, no longer the daughter. He was the grandfather, no longer the father. Ashu was nt sure what she was at the moment. Hd regretted the day he said yes to this dysfunctional family and went to sleep! And Antu picked up a book and shut herself in her room.
Long story short, it was very, very awkward. A 68 year old man yelling at his 39 year old daughter because she yelled at her 12 year old daughter. He just does nt get the irony. I wanted to be his little girl and cry on his shoulders but I was afraid I would strangle him instead. God knows what he was thinking because the man does nt believe in talking. Shoving everything under the carpet is his speciality. And here you think you are doing so much better than your parents only to find out that theres no pleasing when it comes to your children and they hate you no matter what! Yes, yes, I get that irony too. Do you get the riddle now?
* the son she did nt give birth to
