Friday 6 January 2012

Boring Old Fogies

I am bit worried about us becoming boring old fogies, as a couple. Has to happen sometime no? Is it now, 2012? Is it time to hang up the socks?

I remember when we were in grad school, no scratch that, when I was in grad school, we were the cool ones. The couple that people saw 'separately together' as the saying goes. Meaning, we had his friends, my friends, and our friends and the worlds overlapped once in a while and it was all very exotic. No one could predict where our weekends would be spent. "off to new york" I would mime as I passed people trudging home on friday evenings, me in the green bus (ugh, what a nasty thing that was). "off to meet the wife" he would tell his colleagues and one of them said I should slap him if he called me 'the' wife one more time.

"Who wears the pants in this relationship?" they would ask me. I guess I must have been sitting down. Because standing up its clear that whatever pants are there in this relationship, they are too big for me. In fact most pants are too big for me. I have to always alter the length. And the damn tailor can never believe the true height of me and then I have to re-do by hand-hemming once again as I am sort of afraid of tailors and won't dare go back to them.

"Sorry, we are going to the movies" we would chant, refusing an offer of some party or the other (usually involving Chole. Or Rajma. Which my husband said he would never eat again after he spent two years tolerating his own cooking of said seeds on alternate days during his school days in Cambridge). And we watched a lot of nice movies in those days. We were totally up to date on the movie scene. Though we tended to occasionally eat at Taco Bell after... That you can blame on being vegetarian and being over-fond of spices!

"Sorry, we are off to visit our niece" we would sing, once that little child was born to my sister and started treating us like the cool couple to beat all cool couples. She had us both so wrapped up that we forgot everyone else around. And vice versa. Though I strongly suspect she likes my husband more than she likes me. I don't dare ask her anything any more because she is twelve and I know she will be super embarrassed about such things. We still get along well and I just bask in that. I managed to teach her to swim (somewhat) this past summer, so am pretty good there. No need to shake the boat.

"I am off to buy a jacket for my husband's work event" I trilled once. I bought a blue jacket with buttons. I wore it with jeans and a button down. I wore special footwear too. It was brown. I looked pretty much like a child wearing adult dress up clothes for the first time. While biting off the store tag on the jacket, I tore the wool a little bit. I went there and it was an open air event and everyone was in shorts. Pretty much. But it was cold so I was happy to be warm.

"Wow. A Phd. A smart one, are you? Why are you with this guy?" one or two of his friends would invariably say. This was like a big joke of course because of 'this guy' being all MIT and all crazy like that. I would smile and try to tell them how it was a 'conversation stopper.' Seriously, go into a bar and tell someone who is sidling up to you that you are a Chemical Engineer. They just turn and walk away. (Or maybe its just me). Which is why its good when we are together. I can say 'Yeah I am the wife' And I don't tell anyone that I am a Chemical Engineer.

"Are you sure you have a husband? Like a real one?" one my colleagues in Bombay used to ask, for the longest time. I would be suitably angry at this and try to show him photos and stuff. He would just laugh. One time I punched and dragged spouse to one of those dinner parties at work and was all going to show that colleague of mine and so on. But the men got along very well and I was cut out of all the conversation and I still don't think he totally believes that that was my husband because he was cool.

Oh well. Maybe I am just a boring old has-been. Or always-has-been. At least my husband has some chance of being cool. Because he can sing [though I strongly recommend not saying the word 'Karaoke' to him. He is a mike hog to beat all mike hogs in the world]. And in recent times he has expanded his horizon to include conducting long drawn out dance sessions for children at parties. While I quietly hang on the sidelines clutching my head and wishing I could lie down somewhere and sleep....

4 comments:

Choxbox said...

Huh? She is 12? Remember her pix when she was tiny!
How did this happen??!

Anonymous said...

Holy moly, I am exhausted just reading all the social life-y things you all do! Personally I've been a wickedly boring old fogey since about age 12. You come to embrace the fogey life, in my experience. :)

dipali said...

You guys are tres cool:)

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

chox - you better believe it! she is all music-y and really awesome!
sweatykid - consider this social life spread over uhhh the past 20 years. yep. that covers it!
dipali - you be too kind!