I have six wonderful women in my life: My mother, my four sisters and my wife. My mother is my superwoman. She is an all-rounder who is an expert in everything like all the moms in the world. She is the world’s greatest chef. Gordon Ramsay would be crying if he faced my mom.
So what if Gordon Ramsay has a couple of Michelin stars. If Ramsay happens to meet my mother and pisses her off, he is bound get hit by the pan.
My mother can find dust and spider webs in places you never imagined. As they say cleanliness is next to godliness, my mother makes sure that we all follow the dictum. When we were kids, we used to throw our shoes around and fight over the remote control but when we used to hear her voice, the shoes would arrange themselves and the TV volume was reduced in a matter of seconds. Now, she knits sweaters and caps for us and her grandchildren. When she was young, she even weaved a carpet that still sits in our living room today.
I have four wonderful sisters. My eldest sister now lives in the UK. We call her the ‘Second Mom’ because she was more of a mother than a friend. She could have been the brand ambassador for coke. Her early morning drink was not water, tea or coffee or hot water with honey. She preferred the sugary drink. And she never had any health problems. She always used to watch Hindi serials. Those days, we did not have so many Desi or Nepali TV channels. The only foreign channel was Doordarshan and Shah Rukh Khan was doing his bit in ‘Fauji’ and ‘Circus’. My sister would stay up late to watch these serials as she was given the free pass for being the eldest.
My parents thought she would not get good grades in the SLC exam. But Hindi serials and coke did not affect her grades. She managed to pass with First Division and so did my other sister. Today, she lives in the UK. My mom tells me that my sister’s house is the cleanest house in the UK and probably better sterilized than the leading hospitals there.
My sister is also very good at looking out for great deals, be it clothes or fruits or anything. She sends me gifts on my birthday and other occasions and I never complain. If I were to be a celebrity, I would hire my sister as my stylist. We only meet every three or four years but she knows my size and what looks good on me. And I have a great brother-in-law and a nephew who has a British accent and whose favorite Nepali word is ‘Kina?’ for everything.
My other two elder sisters were in the same class and went to the same school. My Sano Didi had better grades and was also good at sports. But when the SLC results were out, she got a failing grade in Nepali. She was distraught, depressed and my father went to Sano Thimi for months to make sure that they had not screwed up. She had the third highest marks in her sent-up exams and her school principal was confident that after rechecking her papers she would turn out fine. And when they finally gave the new result, she had 73 in Nepali instead of 13.
She went to the States as a pre-med student but later switched to women studies and development. She now helps trafficked women and single moms. She has more than thirty employees in her social enterprise. I tell her that she should be nominated for the next CNN Hero from Nepal but she says she is not interested.
My sister and her friends organize a fun 5K run every year to celebrate International Women’s Day. The women run while the men help with the water station, registration and then cleaning up after the program. Sometimes, I feel that she has so much energy that even the folks who make Red Bull would ditch their formula if they found the recipe to the special drink my sister drinks to be up and running from five in the morning till late at night. Sometimes, I tell her to relax but before I even finish telling her how to relax, she is already out of the door to attend to someone else’s needs.
My thulo bahini also lives in the UK. She is probably the fittest person in the family. She exercises every day and her diet is full of fresh vegetables and fruits and the food has little oil and she says no to sugary drinks except for some dark chocolate now and then. She has participated in the Everest Marathon. I have yet to go on a trek or run a marathon. Last time, I participated in a 5k race, I was behind a bunch of 10 year olds in the finish line.
My sano bahini is a MD in pediatrics and currently teaches medical students in China. She is the youngest and that let her get away with anything. Even now, when she’s back home, she doesn’t have to do the dishes or cook. Well, I do the dishes most of the time. But my doctor bahini is more of a real person. The rest of us are always hyper and we have to get into discussions about anything just for the sake of discussion.
My eldest sister will rearrange the sofa cushions even if you leave the sofa for a minute to go to the bathroom. My Sano Didi will talk about three different stuffs, like saving the world, fighting the system and how our government officials and politicians are anti-women in less than a minute and when it’s time to give your views, she is already out the door to attend to her million chores. My thulo bahini should run a boot camp for young kids and even young professionals where they learn fitness, diet and discipline. I think most of them will drop out in less than a week because my sister will make you feel guilty for all the oily, masala-daar stuff you have had in life and even in your previous life.
As for my wife, there’s nothing to say that’s not been said before. My wife and a Bollywood actress share some common stuff. They have the same name, and they are both dark. The actor used to play badminton but my wife plays the pinching game. If she is pissed at me, she pinches me so hard, especially in my arms, that if she keeps on at it, I might someday (soon) have bigger arms than Salman Khan. And thanks to my wife, whenever I visit my local cooking gas dealer, I pinch the sahuji for failing to provide me with a cylinder for months.
Before, they used to greet me with a Namaste even if they didn’t have any cooking gas in their store. Now, when they see me coming, they leave their bicycles and run while the sahuji pulls down the shutter because they don’t want to have sore arms. As for my wife I think she will keep on pinching me until I buy her a platinum ring. I guess Diamonds are no longer a girl’s best friend. But these fantastic women are definitely my best friends.
kalumaila99@gmail.com
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