Being Married to a South Indian has many advantages and disadvantages of its own. While I got a chance to look at a different aspects of cooking and also learnt a number of new dishes which I never knew existed (I will be publishing these tasty recipes in some time here), there are some other things that I wished was done differently.
One big challenge that I face is the language barrier. My husband is more of a North Indian though he was born a South Indian, because of being educated and having worked in most of North India. But the fun is when it comes to communicating with the natives at my in-laws. More often that not I sit there dumb-faced when most of the conversation happens, trusting that I am not the topic of the discussion. Off late, though I have started to understand a little bit of Malayalam and believe I can even win a contract now. 🙂
After about an year of marriage, I was on a visit to Kerala. My husband was busy with his relatives as usual and I had some time to explore Kerala (that will be a macro term, because my idea was to explore the place where we were). Unaware of the disaster that was awaiting, I promised my husband I will be back in a couple of hours and set out of a nice walk along the rural sights of my native.
The beauty of Kerala is such that you are bound to get lost. It was green all around as if there was no other color in the spectrum. I enjoyed every minute of that walk. After about an hour and a half of walk, I decided it was time to go back. The next minute was the longest minute in my life. I turned and was surprised to see three roads converging onto the point I was standing. I was absolutely sure this was not there before because I walked only one road.
The next minute I got my confidence back and walked up to an elderly standing on the road side showcasing his six-packs he had earned out of hard work, wearing that traditional lungi with extreme prints and a beedi between his fingers. I opened my mouth and was surprised that I could speak only 2 languages – Hindi and English. Malayalam will just not come out.
My question (obviously in Hindi), “How do I go to…..?” and then I realized I do not know the name of the place we were staying. I could still have managed to enquire citing some landmarks but that was too much for the old man to understand.
I could see the ending seconds in the Hindi movies of the 80s reading , “The End” flashing before my eyes.
I am done, finished. I did to everything to myself believe it.
Then I realized that I am in the 21st century, with all the technology at my disposal. More so the biggest thing in time today – my mobile phone.
(I had always thought that my husband was something I cannot do without but then that minute told me that it was actually the mobile phone that I couldn’t do without and my husband came only the second.)
I dialed my husband’s number only to get a message, “The number you have dialed is out of coverage area”. That is what happens if you are on different networks.I wished we had the same network, but alas…
I am a blogger, an internet marketer. How could I just let it go without trying? I am supposed to be internet savvy and yes, I was.
I pulled my blackberry out, hit a few buttons, opened the navigator and fed in a few details. I was searching for the nearest temple, because I knew I am not far from my house and that there was a well known temple near my house.
The navigator gave me 4 options each at around 3 kms apart. The next 3.5 hours I walked to each of these temples because I did not have to vocabulary to explain to an auto rickshaw driver as to where I wanted to go.
Unfortunately for me, the temple I was looking for was the 3rd one. Finally I reached home after about 5 1/2 hours only to see my husband whiling his time away with his first wife – his computer, unaware that he almost lost his real wife.
As soon as he saw me, his first dialogue was, ” Yaar, make me some pakodas” and I knew that it is time that I concentrated on cooking and recipes.
That day I learnt a lesson that “The Internet is more helpful than your Husband”.