THE POTATO PLATTER

Daisy Rao!!!

What is it with old people and their constant need to reiterate the lives of Daisy Rao and Crazy Pauo? My Dadi is over from Hyderabad, and accepted she has a lot of contacts in delhi having spent over 50 years here, but the almost paranormal obsession with discussing who died and who got married beats all levels of thrill!!!

Its safe to assume that I would know squat about the afore said Daisy Rao, and these discussions are carried on with my parents as the main intended receptacles , but having heard her name dropped over dinner it kinda stuck. Now all she does apart from reading a lot of stuff, is talking about this colonel and that doctor who had so many sons and daughters (usually, as is the case with all south Indian families I have the good fortune of knowing, 7 - 8) And how many of the sons and daughters are married.

This gives rise to the details of the marriage, the discussion on which can be summarized in 1 Line. She/He is married to a hindu? Muslim? any other religion and visa vi if the tables are turned. Then comes the regalia of whether the concerned Colonel and his 7 - 8 children are settled abroad or not. And as is again the south Indian preoccupation with the US of A. It is most likely that 80 percent of the children are living abroad. The remaining 15% trying to go there and 5% in transit!!!

Now utterly moribund it the detailed discussion on whose dying and whose dead and who according to superior knowledge, should be dying but isn't there yet!!! Appended to this is the poor so and so son or daughter that has to wait to move to the US because of either appended death, or expected death or some other calamity!!!

Following this is the luckless Doctor/Engineer/Lawyer/ etc (since South Indians do not take in a big way to many other professions (akash can probably attest to this) ) who follows the colonel in processional pomp ready to destroy my dinner with the concise biography of his/her and adjoined family(usually includes extended family in case of insufficient sons and daughters).

Now the occasional such discussion would have me stupendously amused, however, the frequency of this specially over dinner has me loosing appetite. So Really what is it with these closely linked concentric circles and the demise of my dinner?