Your nose is in my business!

 Your nose is in my business!

Vandana Pandey’s comment on last week’s post that the person asking me how I keep myself busy should have been given a retort, set me thinking. To clarify, at that moment I was too happy enjoying golgappe to have even bothered about or think of anything. Yet, sadly, even a week later I have neither a satisfying answer to the lady’s question, nor any retort for such enquirers for future use.

But it made me think of hundreds of questions that I am asked. These have generally been personal in nature and as a rule, unless the receiver has an answer ready or is happy to be asked, they should be counted as rude, offensive or at least irritating.

Please take note, people asking such questions mostly have been outside the circle of family, friends, relations or even colleagues (although some things even these categories should not be asking). Being near strangers or nodding acquaintances, I have no reason to believe that they have my welfare in mind or are genuinely concerned about my comfort or well-being. The queries seem to be demanding an explanation and have a tone of disbelief or worse, disapproval.

Now I am weighed under another worry - is it only me that invites questions?  Are people generally curious about my life? If yes, then what do I owe this honour to? Or is it a general malaise? Do others also get asked the same questions or there are other varieties?  

If I was a psychiatrist, I’d have been thrilled to have some such enquirers on my payrolls. They would ask people and create mental and emotional issues and I would be a rich woman.

The enquirers are not foreigners who are curious about our habits, customs and rituals. In fact, to them I would love to boast about our sanskriti (culture) and riwaaz (customs) as also present some factual or warped logic for believing in them.

Before you give up, let me share some samples.

The most recent one was “Aapki Diwali kaisi rahi (How was your Diwali)?”

I said good and thought that was that. But the next one crept in-

“Lakshmi Ganesh layeen? Pooja ki (Did you bring idols of Lakshmi, Ganesh and worship them?)” She sounded like the proverbial mother in law. I gave a breezy, “Ji”.

I did not see it coming. “Mr Mani pooja mein baithe they? (Did Mr Mani participate in the worship?)”

She must have known the answer but I still said, “Nahin, woh pooja nahin kartey. (No, he does not do any pooja).”

Her eyes widened, she brought her face closer and as if checking on someone’s birth control methods, whispered- Diwali par bhi nahin (Not even on Diwali)?

“Nahin, nahin, unke liye sab din barabar hain.” (No, no, all the days are same for him), I said. See why my mother in law would never have asked this.

The lady must have mentally labeled Mani as the biggest equivalent of Scrooge/Grinch for Diwali. Fortunately, she did not elaborate on how the pooja is conducted in her own house or deadlier still – offer unsolicited advice on how to make Mani sit for pooja. (I can see mirth on the faces of those of you who know Mani.)

Questions maybe related with appearance. Don’t you wear  sari/trousers/bindi/jewellery- anything they do not see me wearing? You don’t colour your hair? Is it counted as an observation, a question or a remark?

The curiosity may be about eating habits or food or about choice of a house/flat, its size/location or living arrangements. In India grown up, working, even married children, living with their parents is still seen as a sign of good upbringing, so any situation to the contrary especially if they are living in the same city, is looked at askance.

At test may be choice of school for your children, their playing hours or activities. The questions might pertain to something as mundane as preference for household appliances barring reasonable queries about their price or performance. 

I recall my sister in law’s tone drenched in horror as she witnessed one such question-answer session and asked how could people ask such questions (she does not live in India). I could not explain to her that it is normal, at least with me. Either I look strange or behave weirdly or maybe almost everyone gets asked similarly.

Often it happens in gatherings. Why are you sitting here alone/quietly? You don’t know so and so?

The questions seem harmless in the beginning, e.g., children are asked according to age- What are you studying?

Why are you studying that?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When do you plan to start working?

What do you work as, where, why?

Now that you are working when are you getting married?

Some experts do not blink before asking salary, or girl/boyfriends too.

The string of queries winds tighter with marriage.

How many children do you have?

Not planning a family?

You don’t have any children, why? Everything alright na?

With a heavy padlock on my tongue I used to lock in the bubbling temptation to answer back- popping a child as soon as you get married can be a result of bad or no planning/mismanagement/accident/demand by family/age or health related issues, the tough part is not to have one till you are convinced that you are ready to have a child (another tricky question, I agree).

Why don’t you have a second child, mostly followed by the suggestion that two is company. And I am always reminded of an incident.

A friend’s 8-year old son was asked, “Why don’t you ask your parents to get you a sibling?”

The boy innocently asked, “Us se kya hoga? (What does that achieve?)”

“You would get a playmate.”

Tempted, the kid asked, “How soon can that happen?”

The adult, confident (I don’t know how) of my friend and her husband’s fertility, said, “Not even a year.”

The little boy thought for a second and asked, “And when would the baby play with me?”
“When he/she is about three years old.”

The boy was silent for a minute and then he further asked, “So by the time I am 9, the baby would be born.”

“Yes,” came the enthusiastic reply.

The little brain knew some arithmetic, “And when I am 12, he/she would start playing with me.”

“Yes, yes,” the adult was convinced of her power of persuasion.

“What kind of games can a three-year child play with a 12-year boy? I would be busy in my studies, sports and friends.”

The adult left speechless, looked around and in a tone loaded with exasperation, “Yeh, aaj kal ke bachche bhi bahut behas karte hain.  (The kids nowadays argue a lot). Needless to say that moment little Sunny turned a super-darling for me even though his parents got the blame for not having taught him how to be polite to adults.

Fortunately, there was a time when we were seven or eight one-child families living as neighbours in a railway colony and the factor brought us together.  Isn’t it good that the population burden of the country has stopped the counting of offspring at two?

The question-rain does not stop at you. It goes on to your next generation. What are your children doing? Where are they? If in India –don’t they want to go abroad? If abroad, will they come back? What will you do in old age? Why don’t you call them to India?

Or aap bête/beti ki shadi kab kar rahi hain (When are you getting your son/daughter married off)?

Un ke abhi bachche nahin huye? Kitne saal ho gaye shaddi ko? (They don’t have kids yet? How long have they been married?)

The queries might be about the actions/activities/behaviour of somebody I know well. Most of the times I do not know the answer myself but the question-poser does not believe me. They look suitably offended that I have not satisfied their curiosity. But don’t they understand that even if knew the answer, especially if it is a sensitive one, I would respect our relation and not share it with them, a third person.

But my own curiosity is - what they do with so much information about others’ personal lives?

                                                                                         - Anupama S Mani