Through my Lens-25

Hi there! Welcome to  my quest to explore beauty in the overlooked and share with you the world through my lens. This week’s picture has a warm, fuzzy feeling to it, but to feel it you would  need to read the background first 🙂

Six cars, forty five people and I was tucked in the back seat in one of these cars, which meant having no immediate door to get out(coming in and going out of the car was really ‘comfortable’) or a window which could roll down. This is one of the perks, being made to sit in the back I mean, when you belong to the younger lot who are agile enough to hop into the less comfortable areas.

The car was full of (a few) middle and( majority) senior citizens. The reason we were travelling together was that we belonged to the same clan and had same hometown. This made all seven of us get into one car, and spend the next four hours of the journey together. We were heading to my first cousin’s wedding and the atmosphere in the car was as pleasant as was the 32 degree Celsius heat outside. We had only covered fifteen minutes or maybe half an hour of the journey when we my uncle sitting on the front seat beside the driver, who being into taxi business since years had many faults to find in the way the driver was driving the car. The poor driver was a docile man and knew courtesy well.  He was meekly replying to my uncle’s observations but my uncle thought the man had a lot to learn. In sometime it got to much until my aunt said, “Stop it. This is the guy who has to drive us back at midnight.”But maybe my uncle was not in the mood to let go of lousy drivers who use a lot of break while driving and made the car jerk than giving us a smooth ride.

Soon the topic changed when my aunt saw a liberty(footwear brand) showroom. She was delighted to tell us about her shopping spree when she bought 7 pairs in one go! Well, as she explained, only a few brands had her size and so bulk shopping was what she did when she found many cool pairs at one place. Moreover, she had to go to a kitty party every other day and she couldn’t repeat the same pair, could she? And every other day covered 12 of the kitties including clubs she had membership of! On hearing this, the expression of shock on the people’s faces complete with tensed temples, wide eyes and slightly open mouth  was enough to know the conversation was going to be much more interesting that was expected. As it came up, everyone had something to contribute but my aunt had the most hilarious anecdotes to spare. The first one was aimed at my uncle, who had left my aunt at a railway crossing and started off on his scooter leaving the distraught aunt in shock while her little son was screaming “Papa stop!stop!! Mummy’s left behind”. It was his shouting which made my uncle realize his folly. I guess men need to realize that they can really get rid of women that way. It just doesn’t work.

The other one concerned  my aunt’s Father-in-law(FIL),who was known for his anger. This was a time when my aunt was newly wed bride into the home. One day she had to accompany her FIL to the electricity department to pay the bills.  It was a hot sunny morning and as they stood at the gates, they realized the queue at the electricity office’s payment counter was a huge one. Those were the days when e-payment system was not prevalent and one had to stand in long queues to pay the bills. And the reason for  taking the women  of the house along, especially on due date, was to get benefit of comparatively shorter queue at the women’s counter.So, my aunt was instructed as follows “You go and stand in the women’s counter” As she turned to her FIL to respond in affirmative, she saw the drawstrings of his pajama notoriously dangling out. And when she tried to tell him before anyone would see,  she got a good spanking. “You are more concerned about my drawstring than the pending bills? Go and stand in the queue this instant.” Well, by shouting at a pitch higher than normal, he had already made everyone standing nearby aware of the drawstring. It Dangling or not, was most probably left to their imagination.On hearing the tale, everyone in the car broke into laughter, except the driver owing to his inability to understand Punjabi.

Sandwiched between two ladies and thinking, ‘maybe this ride was not going to be as boring’, I looked out the window and saw this beautiful sunset.  And so I pressed the click button before any other anecdote could distract my attention.

Hues@sunset

Happy SUNday!