Friday, September 14, 2007

Obnoxiously awkward moment

Ever been in a situation where you look left, right, up and then eventually settle down with the floor? Man, I hate such moments.

Alright, so you're not 12 anymore and you're really not as embarrassed when you're watching TV with your family and suddenly there's a sexual scene or a lot of swearing. You're past the age when that is 'so totally the most embarrassing moment, like, EVER'. So, technically, you're a lot more 'mature', right? Right. Great. But...does it ever happen that you're out there, mature and 'macho' and all of that and then you land smack in the middle of a situation where you, well, end up with your eyes looking out for the tiniest speck of SOMETHING on an incredibly I-can-see-my-face-it's-so-clean floor, to concentrate on? Yeah...I had one of those moments a couple of hours ago.

Relatives. PHEW! They're exhausting. And one of my mom's cousins (along with his parents, wife and kids) just paid us a visit. His mom's my mom's aunt. Basically, उनकी mummy मेरी नानीजी कि sister हैं. And it just so happens that I lost my नानीजी a year and a half ago. It was extremely shocking to everyone since it happened quite suddenly. Now, these cousins of my mom's had come over to our house for the first time and I was basically giving my cousin नानीजी (?) a little tour of the house. Now she, let me add, is a lady who's well into her 60's. In fact, she's close to touching 70. So, anyway, moving right along...I'm taking her around the house for a little tour and I show her my parents' bedroom. And there, on my mom's bedside table is a photo frame with my नानीजी 's photograph. As I turn around to get out of the room to carry on with the tour, I hear a sniffle. First, I froze. Then, as I slowly turned around to face where my cousin नानीजी was standing I began to feel extremely uncomfortable, basically realizing what an awkward moment this was going to be. I saw her looking at the photograph, eyes filled with unshed tears and a lot of emotion. It's not very often that one sees so much emotion in someone's eyes, especially when looking at a photograph. Despite my discomfort, I tried to get some words out of my mouth that might be comforting. I'm not very good with tears, mine or someone else's, so it was a little difficult but I tried my level best. And then, realizing what I was doing (or maybe what she was doing), she grabbed her साड़ी का पल्लू, took off her glasses and began to clean an incredibly clean pair of spectacles, while never taking her eyes off of them! The tears in her eyes began to quickly dry and the clean pair of spectacles in her hands began to sparkle!

Smiling to myself, I put one arm around her shoulder and lead her out of the room, to the dining hall where the rest of the family was waiting for us.

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