Don’t be shocked but slavery is alive (operating from an exotic location) and kicking (clad in designer footwear). In modern India. And it took root, innocuously enough, in the bedrooms of upwardly mobile middle-class-parents-to-be in the ’90s.
It was at this time — as if they had received a joint message from the almighty — that future dads, from Adarsh Nagar to Greater Kailash, rose as one, tenderly rubbed the swollen bellies of their glowing, middle-class wives and said: “You know what we are missing? Slavery. Some good old-fashioned slavery...”
And all the wives, finely tuned to the thoughts in their partners’ heads, completed the sentence with: “... Yes, Darling (or atthaan, jaanu, baava, chettan or sachchinoda as the case may be), and we can fill that vacuum by giving birth to our very own personal slave-masters.”
Hearing this message, through our time-tested Abhimanyu technology, womb-dwelling semi-babies nodded and said, “Cool, Parents. Our wish is your command. Now go get a tiramisu and feed me via Mummy. I know it’s 2 am but that 24-hour coffee shop is just 18 km away.”
Today, these kids have grown up. Along the way, as they were being dropped off or picked up at schools, sleepovers and college by ever-available parents (in a car chosen by the precious offspring), these lovely young ones decided where the family would go for dinner, which international destination they would grace this summer, or between Daddy and Mummy, who should do maths homework and who the science project.
Let’s take my good friend Sethumadhavan from Chennai. Everyone knows a Sethumadhavan. If you are honest, some of you are Sethumadhavan.
Sethumadhavan has one delightful girl and one charming boy. Lovingly named Janma Malini and Kurkuresh (perhaps by themselves, via a curt memo from the womb). They are wonderful, apparently, according to the pics shared by the parents. Because there’s a minimum of 63 heart emojis per pic. And the mandatory #feelingblessed.
The older one studies in the US. (The little angel makes up one of every five international students in the US.) She is getting a Masters in Rodeo Management from the University of Lower West Arizona. Apparently in preparation for the giant horse-wrangling boom she has predicted in the next five years. Sethu has been persuaded to buy a large piece of land where his steadily growing collection of Vijay Mallya’s retired mares grazes nonchalantly.
The second one, god bless him, studies in the US, too. But not before he tried and rejected Australia. Kurkuresh is doing a combination course in beauty therapy and geriatric management from the University of Pahokee, Florida. He is currently taking a gap year (after six harrowing months of study) in St. Kitts.
Unfortunately, no gap year for Sethu. Not till the end of time. He can see sixty on the horizon but has decided to take up a second job. As his assistant’s second-in-command. His wife, Anjali, once a lovely girl herself, sells pickles as a side business. For which she has borrowed from a financier called ‘Spanner’ Chanti.
The latest Facebook post of the Sethumadhavans is about how #feelingawesome they both are that their older one, the beauteous Janma Malini, is getting engaged now. To a lovely Gujarati boy whose folks run a video repair shop in Edison, New Jersey. And that #partytime will be in Bali. With Christopher Nolan’s fourth assistant (serendipitously available at a throwaway price!) videographing the entire thing.
And Sethumadhavan is “over the moon” because dear, affectionate, sentimental Janma Malini has posted a delightful poem on Insta about how he is the Bestest Daddy In The World. It goes:
My daddy is the bestest daddy
He’s so much cuter than Maddy
He is always there when I collect call
And his remittances are never small
I might marry and leave – for a shortish while
Cuz I’ll be back to bring back your smile
With Praful, dog, and two darling offspring
For whom you and Mummy can fetch and bring
It’s got 635 likes! That alone, he says, is worth the price of the air-tickets (economy, of course, she is such a considerate girl) he’s buying for her sixteen BFFs.
Kurkuresh, they say, has hinted that he has some good news of his own.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a humour writer, novelist, columnist and screenwriter
