Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Fathers Day!

This Fathers day was our third because it was around three years ago that we heard about Fathers Day. It’s not your typical mallu festival but we modified it so that our hardworking Dads would get a well deserved break from the joys of fatherhood.

So after many hush hush meetings with cousins we decided that the best gift we can give our Daddies was…….a day away from our mommies!!!!!!.

And boy! Did they hasten to agree with our philosophy! One of my ‘ungles’ even broke down when he heard that. The poor mans wife is a housewife you see!! He is also an advocate for Marital Annual Leave and Marital Casual Leave and Marital Sick leave for which he unsuccessfully campaigns at every family gathering.

So Sunday morning dawned partially cloudy with the Met office predicting that “it may rain or it may not rain”. After breakfast my mom was gently chided to hurry up and pack up for the day. We needed her out so that we could stuff the freezer and the fridge with the beer. Showing unnatural tardiness in getting dressed for her big outing we finally managed to push her out of the house where a car full of highly curious ladies waited for their ‘exciting trip’ to somewhere.

With the ladies outta the way and the beer cooling their heels in the fridge we gave the men the green signal to start trooping in. And they came in… in all shapes and sizes , fat, thin, tall, short, bald, hairy, corporate types and the not so corporate types, one chronic bachelor ( his excuse was that he was celebrating on behalf of his dad in heaven!!!) all united in the singular purpose of enjoying the day to the hilt. And enjoy they did….drinking like dehydrated fishes, singing ribald songs in Malayalam and cracking risqué jokes when they thought we girls were not around …(some of them even got prompted by us to complete the punch line ,which they didn’t notice anyway.)

The food was strictly bachelor fare…..meat, meat and more meat with enough fat to clog up M.G. Road for one whole day. “Boys’ don’t eat carbs” they sneered,” that’s strictly for the women.” The only saving grace for the “tiger hearts” was the green salad which they seem to enjoy with the meat.

The alcohol revealed hitherto hidden talents as the men (unsuccessfully) tried to demonstrate the art of Kalaripayattu and Kung Fu and Kathakali ending in drunken heaps on the floor. We heard hitherto untold stories of college crushes and about Saramma with the lovely hip length hair and reminiscences of one Nair kutty who held an entire college enthralled for the whole academic year and then broke a hundred hearts by getting married to some rich Gulf returnee. Tales of hunting for wild fowl at night and getting thrown in the slammer for participating in college strikes and many more that sounded like fantastic fables. Tears were wiped as the little boys within them came out unabashedly to enjoy youth one more time.

By evening as we said our goodbyes we had forgotten the original purpose of the gathering, i.e. celebrating ‘Father’s Day! But the day had served its purpose judging from the camaraderie it generated in a small group of Mallu men who had left their home and hearth many years ago to seek their fortune.

24 comments:

chupru said...

The last paragraph brought a cloud of nostalgia; my dad stayed away from home for his kids.
Now I follow his path, minus the pleasure to procreate.

Hope I get grandchildren like you;
but "Whisky" please.

Jake said...

lol! you actually packed the women away! i can imagine my dad's face light up.
the ending's a nice touch.

(and this saramma and nair kutty, are they default names for mallu women. ROFL.)

silverine said...

@Anoop: Thanks; cloud of nostalgia is what hung over the motley crowd that day. And being daytime beer was the preferred choice.

@ Jake: Saramma was the village beauty and the Nair girl was the college heart throb it seems.

Sujith said...

atlast there is someone who understands and acts for men! ;-))

nestpa said...

Not just mallu. But for all those daddy's. I forgot to celebrate. I think I'll take cue from you for next time.

Jake said...

@silverine : no no, i get that. its just that, i have come across the name 'saramma' before. It even featured in a play that i watched once. the play was set in mallu land, and that saramma was quite a thing. Not to mention the 'nair' (i am not kidding, her last name was nair) we had in college. tall and fair and other good things.

perhaps, i should give learning mallu a second thought. :-)

Unknown said...

The act of sending away mothers sounded very funny to me
What will you do on mothers day?

jay menon said...

ver is tht nairkutty now...she might be havin a kutty ;), swantham appane kudipiche kedathiyalle dushtee, lemme see ur dad, I will ask abt saramma for sure ;)

flaashgordon said...

Sob ,sob,sniff, sniff..Wot do i do to get a caring daughter like you

(well, i know literally wot to do(;-)) so take this figuratively)

And wot a brilliant idea for Father's day !!I say they should market this aggressively.

Which father wants some dumb card (bought wth his own money mebbe)n fancy stuff. Somethng like this is just wot u should organize!Really u painted pictures with ur words

Vijay Mallya if he reads ur blog, will jump upon this idea for Father's day!! Coz his sales graphs will then show a himalayan peak on Father's day!!

He can have a tie up with Archies if u dont want to leave out cards completely..

Neway several years hence ;hopefully my daughter will organize something such & even i can remembr college days, seeing the inside of a police van for the first time for (yeah wot else for keralites)participating in a strike tho' i didnt care a $@%k abt the reason for it(i had my pic in the paper next day; which i proudly showed my parents!)also talk about those Rajput, Punjabi babes i "met" in Mumbai and maybe also about one "Achayathi" in Bangalore who got away ;-))!

Letz drink to that !

Cheers (hic)

flaash

http://o3.indiatimes.com/jonagil/

Oneirodynic said...

LOL about "Father's day being heard 3 years ago".Exactly my feeling.My amma couldnt comprehend why i sent a present on mother's day,something which i did for the first time :-)

Came here via 'mad BB guy' btw.

Praveen said...

This was a great way to celebrate Father's day. And the alcohol did the trick of getting out all those secrets :-)

silverine said...

@ Jithu: Yeah the act of opening the booze bottle;)

@Niel: You can still wish him, better late than never.....

@Idli Ideas: For Mothers day we will declare Dry Day!!!

@Jay: The Nair kutty is a beautiful Grandma now.

@Flaash:Well u can show my blog to your children and if they are anything like you they will definitely take the hint.

@Vishnu: Thanks for dropping by my blog and my parents too can't comprehend this Father and Mothers day thingie.

@Praveen: The alcohol did loosen tongues and jiggle those old grey cells :) And the confessions and reminiscences were like an eye opener. Our parents were just like us!!!!!

@Living Dead: Thank you and glad you enjoyed my ramblings.

Unknown said...

Tears from father will make the mothers day wet

Hey ur link in my blog

Sachin Dev T said...

Outta curiosity: How didtcha celeberate Mothers Day ?
Btw,Very very Noble idea to let the men be boys for a day !!
I shall pray I get kids like you..

Matter of Choice said...

i am still choking with envy 2 days after reading this blog!

How does one get an invitation to your future father's day celebrations???. Do u accept "fathers of the church"?? i can become one :))

Ahem..do u plan to celebrate a bachelor's day?? (if there is no such day u can create one!).

Now that i think of it, u dont even need much planning for that; we will be satisfied with the same arangements except for an additional piece of "entertainment" :))

cheerio

manuscrypts said...

grand fathers' day, i say!! :)

Kousik said...

Heh, I didn't even know -- I visited a few blogs, and saw everyone is having a bash on father's day. Wow, I thought, I too should publish something ...

He he he now you know what that was.

zimblymallu said...

who's your daddy, gurl...

unfuel the planet said...

mothers day will be a shopping esp shoes day....

i cannot think of anything else which the females like more

L . Hyena, The said...

hmm...MEAT and BOOZE eh? now why didnt I think of that?? and sending the LADIES away was a stroke of genius...ever considered a career in party planning??

scorpigle said...

nicely woven and touching.. landed here as a result of my blog hopping habit :)

Kraz Arkin said...

Sounds so bloody familiar could have been written about me. I mean the drunken revelry of course and not the fathers part of it. Good one.

Jiby said...

hey, great initiative on ur part...must have been real special for everyone present...i found it odd to tell my dad "happy father's day" though my sis kept prodding me to mouth it...i wondered whether he even knew such a day existed!

Amit said...

lmao!!

Everything that I would like to say has been expressed so well by everyone else above me...

....I bet all the men in your family were really, really pleased!!!