Women! Women!

Quite a long time ago I was an ardent follower of the saas-bahu serials. It always was a yummy thought provoking half an hour of the grinding relationship between two women in a single man's life, his mother and wife. Teary eyed I would cry at the plight of the poor daughter in law who always had to submit to the whims of her always in the arrogant role mother in law. And in another hour, in a different serial I would be scoffing at the vamp of a daughter in law who treated her mother in law with sheer disrespect.

Indeed this relationship between two women can be really tricky. Only a woman can understand a woman is what I always feel but when it comes to a mother in law and daughter in law I guess the case gets topsy turvy. Weird!Maybe it has all to do with women and their role as a home manager. I guess there can only be one queen in a beehive, what else could be the reason for the tussle for power.

I was cleaning dal, squatted on the floor facing my three friends. Deki who lives with her hubby's family remarked," let your mother in law be the boss.Always!" she said the 'always' too loud. Maybe she wanted to put stress in the importance of that word. She narrated an anecdote of how she lets her mother in law be the boss:

She was watching Druk star and seeing her enthusiasm in it I went to cook the dal that she had soaked for hours. I started cutting the onions, garlic and ginger. My style of preparing dal is to fry all these first and then add the dal and then put it to cook it in pressure cooker. I had been in the kitchen for about twenty minutes when my mother in law appeared in the kitchen. "Mathang, pressure cooker tey jik mala ko"

Seeing her dal still drowned in the bowl filled with water, she exclaimed,"yala, why didn't you put the dal on stove yet?" I explained my recipe. "No, no.." she shook her head. "you have to cook the dal first in the pressure cooker. Fry the onions and garlic in another pan and add at the end. "I see," I nodded and walked away to watch her unfinished Drukstar while she started putting the dal in the cooker.I allowed her to cook it in her own style.

"That's how you give the upper hand to her" Deki explained. But the way she explained had us , her audience, rolling on the floor.
"I never come on her path," another friend added. On my way back from the office, I always make sure to take one glance of my mother in law, if she is sullen, I walk to my room quietly and stay there. If she is smiley then I quickly change and sit with her." Roars of female laughter filled the room. "ong ni, on the days when she is extremely happy I even take my tweezers and uproot her grey hair!" Tears started streaming down our cheeks.We laughed holding our aching tummy.

Definitely this is one relationship that will never be understood or interpreted in plain terms. Who knows while we the daughter in laws sit talking about how not to cornered by our big boss, somewhere in some houses there might be team of mother in laws plotting how to keep their daughter in laws in proper shape.

Well! Women! Women! Who can understand them??