Differences that help

The wise man I married a good 15 years ago often remarks that my small town mind cannot read people for nuts. On the contrary I always fought back telling him that inspite of a city upbringing he lacks the prowess to understand the ’ human’ in  people around him. I hate to admit that judging people today is about a 6^th sense.  There is no other way …trust me people there really isn’t another way! Logic, reason and emotion take  a  beating! We later moved on from Madurai to Ambas(rural  to most rural) and then to Bangalore where I made a living. Right from the spinach vendor to Rachana’s Montessori teacher, he taught me to be curt and frugal with words. Those were times with no hand phones. He would wait the full time to call back home to check if I handled the people right. After doing exactly what I was told I would then rationalize the advice and of course argue later in the evening to why he intended to have me handle it in that way. Just call it hi and bye. Its not worth spending your evenings impressing the neighbor girl with your calculus skills. Its not worth it he would say. One thing is assured…everytime I listened to him(I do MOST of the time), I always thought , ‘Is this what my dad called a ‘homely guy’?

Its not once but innumerable times that he will tell me to be skeptical, nonchalant and ignore the petty things of life. He came from a generation of people who believe having a facebook account is a colossal waste of time, who only tweet cricket and read articles of world interest, striking a conversation  with anyone just like that was a foolish act and thinks till today that turning an invitation as he has to watch every ball of the cricket match was perfectly normal. If people thought it was rude,  back luck to them! That includes the sweet daughter’s invite to at least play UNO for a few minutes. If I cribbed about a birthday invite on a Saturday evening that was going to eat into family time, he would just say “Just tell them its family time”. How rude I thought. Oh no I would come up with the most innovative excuse to make sure the people don’t feel bad at all! Of course my ‘be nice’ kind of attitude had always gone down well with our friends and his ‘so whats the big deal’ attitude has earned him a few enemies too! And when I point that out he will simply say, “So how does that help me get my family time with you and Rach”.

BTW, family time for my man simply means wifey cooks, talks(basically he listens only!), smiles, comments along to a cricket match on the TV, teach the daughter a few more stuff on cricket, solve a crossword on his Iphone App, sets the table, eats a stomach full and then for a late night walk across the road with his us! These conversations are rarely about people we know, its normally cricketers, Hindustani and Carnatic music, share prices, how his shoe hurts his ankle, whats the cap on the CPF for me(a part that I am completely blur about), why I must make omelet only 4 times for Rach, why the Sunday NYT Sunday Edition of Today is a must read for me and Rach and why I just need to learn to figure things out more street smartly  and why my intelligence isn’t being used when it comes to non-academic issues! By now, its time to go back and watch a movie and sleep. And people, its for this that I turned down a birthday party invite and turned an office colleague 3 times in a month when they called us for dinner.

In the face of his world, he hardly knows his phone is out of charge, messages remain unread and sometimes calls get unattended. While playing  games on the phone, Rach reads his messages and sometimes also replies the sender politely. Social skills are 'abysmal' and an occasional shout from the sister will just have him say a few more words on the phone to convince her for that moment.

I have always cribbed at home in this area. I started by calling him a moron, then anti-social:) then called him loner, specimen, weirdo and now a new name- Wise old oak who knew it all!  What needs to matter only needs to matter and just to let you know as no cricket was telecast this weekend, this is what he did with my girl having me make papdi chaat and some ginger tea at 6 pm on Saturday and of course pulling me into what seemed like an argument about my pathetic sense of understanding of people. They told me to stop whatever I was doing(after the chaat and tea of course) and use my good calligraphy skills and use a permanent marker in all the covered books!

R listens to her father's narration of David Cameron's deep sea diving and watches him cover her books!

 Ok people you get the drift don’t you! To be task oriented is probably a natural bliss rather than people oriented. People may fail but tasks cannot. That in a nutshell defines the differences we share. And for the first time, keeps me rested, that this difference exists!