Guests and the Formalities

*Ting Tong*

With this sound of the ringing bell, all of the family members get up to give the already messed-up home a little nice look (read ‘putting things in order to make some sitting space for on-the-door guests’).

“Dad, wait for a while don’t open the door; the table is still Lionel Messi messy.”

*Ting Tong, Ting Tong*

The door is finally opened, “Oh Welcome, Welcome” says the person with an exaggerated smile on the face. They, the guests, explode into the house and reciprocate by flashing over-smiling faces.

“Beta, Go and make some tea,” orders the mom.

You are just turning towards the kitchen that you hear the other party saying, “No, No, What is the need to make tea?”

“Why there is no need? Beta, go and make five cups of tea,” mom tells you again.

“No, we’ve just come from home after taking the tea. You are troubling yourself for no reason.”

“What is the trouble in this? Okay, you can take the tea in fewer amounts.”

I don’t understand why this happens every time. All this while you stand there turning towards the kitchen and then back to the room, kitchen-room-kitchen with blank expressions; the debate finally ends.

I’ve many a times tried to avoid these circumstances. Once my sibling told us that some friend of hers is insisting upon coming to our home for some useless reason. She said that she is even going to get her call in few minutes for getting the approval to come to our home and how badly she didn’t want it to happen. 

We made a plan. When her friend called, we started making noise in the background. We were running here and there acting like some kids were playing over at our place. One of us even faked falling down and started crying. The one on the phone cut the call saying, “Sorry yaar, some guests are over at our place. We won’t be able to do work at my home today. ”

The other time, an aunty came to our house. When she knocked on the door I hid in the quilt as every time she visited our home she would ask for me casually.  She always used to be like “You, you’ve grown so much. I want you to make snacks for me. Let’s see how good you are at it.” “How skinny you’ve become you used to be better looking as a kid.”  
She kept on talking to my mom for half an hour or so. When she asked about my whereabouts, my mom said she is here in this quilt. As soon as I heard it, I made a sleepy face and acted like I was sleeping all this while. She lifted the quilt from my face; I barely passed a smile and went back into the quilt.

Since childhood, we are taught to drop our utensils onto the sink after eating the food. But when guests arrive, we ourselves spoil the other kids; when the mom asks to take their utensils and doesn’t let them touch their utensils when they are done with eating.

I’m not saying that guests shouldn’t come at all, but at least the pretence part can be avoided. Little less smiles, little less formalities, and a little more normalcy is what I am talking about.