My family, Part 3

My sister…

When we were small, it was her dearest wish that I call her ‘Akka’ which is a honorific used when addressing an elder sister (She is six years elder to me). Now, at this time, my sister and I were twelve and six respectively. Six years, as everybody knows, is a pre-adolescent age characterized by rebellion against authority and disregard for norms. Naturally, I refused to call her that. She was bitterly disappointed. As a consequence, our childhood was a long series of quarrels (which she usually won, I am ashamed to say, and in my defense I plead, ‘She was bigger than me then’…) interspersed with brief periods of peace when we were hungry or asleep. Despite the intense pressure, I am proud to say that I held out, and have never addressed her ‘akka’ to this day…

My sister has a wonderful imagination, as evidenced by her fondness for the game House-house (this was in the same time period as above), where she took care of kids (dolls), cleaned the house and cooked food (tiny balls of atta, artistically fashioned into small chappati discs.) However, even after she married, she likes to cook. That doesn’t mean we (my bro-in-law and I) like to eat her cooking though, for the food is often full of surprises... and not good ones either. Now that she has had a baby, we hope that she realizes the importance of my bro-in-law being alive and well, he is the bread earner of the family after all, and leaves the cooking to more capable hands…

My sister takes after my mother in terms of height. As a consequence, she is rather… vertically challenged. Her height is a sore point with her (she doesn’t like being referred to as ‘short’), but since she unfortunately takes after my father in terms of temper, it means one can’t tease her too much about it…

How to get on her good side… Shower the baby with praise, and criticize Priety Zinta’s dance in Salaam Namaste, something she says is impossible to do in the later stages of pregnancy.