love-hate kerala

We are heading off to TVM today. The idea is that I poke my head around and appease the mighty evil gods that are my relatives. However, there is also some wedding reception all these folks plan to attend, for which I am sure I will get dragged along last minute. So as a preventive counter move I will be wearing jeans and tee (read unpresentable). I am also rather wary of this trip because technically speaking anyone who visits from distant lands is supposed to bring with them a bounty of foreign chocolates. The good woman that I am, I bought quite a lot from those duty free shops at the airport. However, I ate them. Along with tea, these served as fuel during my three-day battle with statistics. Now as ashamed as I am by my lack of self-control and as embarrassed as I am by the dilemma I have put myself in, I am also thinking- to hell with those crappy ungrateful nephews, they don't even visit anymore. And I am gonna hold on to that thought until this ordeal of a visit is done and over with.

Meanwhile, at home, we have a new member, a doleful dash we have named inji. Apparently, this name was originally suggested by H for the dash she intends to buy sometime into the far far unforeseen future. But, well, this conveniently slipped my conscious mind and now his name is inji. Though, after getting to know him a little better I am tempted to change his name to saadhu. But no, let the dog have some spunk.

Then there's food. Oh the food. The food, the food, the food. All the fish and prawns in the world I could ever want, and so fresh, not like the crappy, packaged, will-last-till-2014 shit back in syracuse. And mum made some brilliant biriyani yesterday. Next week, I plan to move onto mutton, my dear ol' good ol' mutton. Mum is also making sweet stuff, which she really shouldn't, because mallu food is really not about desserts and it doesn't add much value to my back-home experience, but anyhow, I can take it in my stride i suppose. A falooda would be good though, and kulfis, though again, they are not mallu. Also, porottas and thattu kada chilli chicken. haaaa.

To put some kind of a cap on the weight gain that will surely ensue all this eating, I tepidly brought up the possibility of going to the gym that my dad visits and he just shot it down. There are no women there! he said. Heh, that's right father, and let us never ever upset that fine equilibrium. Mum said once she dies (she went into one of her impending-death narratives today morning) I will have no reason to come back, nobody's gonna be there to cook me awesome food and care for me, and she is right. What does this state have to offer other than my mum-dad, food and greenery? Its amazing how it doesn't even occur to people that women are treated like 2nd rate citizens in this state. Local logic seems to run along the lines of - they treat us that way for "our own good". What really gets me are the women. So many are brainwashed or braintrained in a way that they actually support all this thoroughly creepy logic. They disgust me and I pity them. Why do I even bother getting aggravated? This is the land where 'rape is really only an offence if the woman did not provoke it'. God, if i were to act on my every provocation.

Speaking of kerala men, mosquitoes are also back in action, with a vengeance i notice. Well, why not, i say, why not. Let them all flourish.