Sandhya Vasudev
My colleague once expressed that if not for her mother in law’s support she would not have advanced in her career.
This was a new version of the “saas” for me, as from time immemorial the relationship between a girl and the mother in law (mil) has been generally a difficult one. It is not an exaggeration that the mil has either nursed the idea that the daughter-in-law (dil) is a free maid or an adversary out to snatch her son from her. Little wonder that the TV soaps depict the tradition rather than the exceptions. My mother had told me about an incident of the 1940s, where the neighbour’s sole motto was to see that her dil did not sit idle for a moment. Once the harassed girl unexpectedly got the mil’s permission to visit her mother’s place. But as the girl was stepping out, the mil dropped a box of mustard seeds, which spread all over the floor, and ordered the girl to pick each one up before leaving!
The thought of being deprived of a maternal home visit made the girl plucky enough and she immediately took a large damp towel and gathered up the mustard, and in a trice put them into the box, even as the older woman’s jaw fell apart. The girl rushed away before a word could be spoken proving that despair leads to innovation!
Recently I met a lady, well into her fifties, who expressed, “As a new bride, I had a mil who matched the aforementioned one in character. Once I was ordered to slit a mound of green chillies into small pieces when I was convalescing, that left my hands burning all over. Yet another time during my postpartum period she undertook to make a dish to restore my energy. Apart from dry fruits, the main ingredient was a copious amount of desiccated coconut, which entailed grating the coconut kernels for hours together. She heaped around ten-twelve such kernels and ordered me to grate them and rushed off to a neighbour’s place for her daily dose of gossip. Being fatigued after a sleepless night with the two month baby, I absolutely had no energy to do the arduous work. It flashed to me that I could do the same with a mixie in a jiffy, so I cut the kernels into pieces and the mixie did the rest.”
The Indian jugaad in action! I asked curiously, “What had the mil to say?” She replied, “Oh, she was irritated and expressed that it was an improper way of doing it, but the neighbour who had accompanied her supported me, looking at the infant in my arms.”
Such tales may appear far-fetched in modern times where the dil may be matching swords. But for that lady in question it seems there is no respite as yet, for despite juggling a laudable career and domestic responsibilities exceptionally well, she is at the mercy of her aging mil, who, notwithstanding her frail physique, has maintained her whiplash-like tongue as strong as ever, never missing a chance to backbite about or berate her dil. Having sailed in the same boat, when I hear about a warm hearted mil, I really am impressed. Let such an unusual strain increase amongst us is all that I can say.