This small incident refuses to take leave of my brain. In fact, it outrages me every time I think about it.
A few months ago my mom and I were waiting at Amsterdam for our connecting flight back home. Naturally there were a large number of Indians on the flight and we ended up sitting next to a genial looking lady who was keeping watch on a couple of children who were whizzing around in general. Striking up a conversation with her seemed the most natural thing to do for my mom and off she started and discovered that genial lady, let's call her Mrs. D, was returning from a fantastic vacation in Paris.
Obviously this was a cue for exchange of vacation notes. "My daughter just had a baby, so I went to visit her", declares mom.
"Elder daughter?"
"Yes, this is my younger one", jabs a finger in my direction. I'm being anti-social and have my nose stuffed into a book or a bacon sandwich, I forget which.
What followed after this has had me fuming in rage since then, enough at least to make me write this.
Once I have been pointed out to her, Mrs D asks "You have two daughters?". Mom - "Yes". When my mom stops at yes, Mrs. D picks up the thread again and asks "Ok, so two daughters... and one son?", venturing the second part as a natural understanding that after two daughters my mom MUST have son which she didn't need to declare but since it was unthinkable that she wouldn't have a son it was to be understood. !!!!!! How I wanted to throw the book, or bacon sandwich, at her!
Mrs. D, feeling unnecessary sympathy for mom, hurriedly proceeded to describe her Paris vacation, with me sneakily listening in.
After listening to the highlights of her vacation I think I got an insight as to why she would ask what she did. It was a vacation to Paris all right, but the highlights of the vacation were not the supposed beauty of the city, or French culture, or the Louvre or even the Eiffel Tower. Mrs. D was proudly describing how they rented an apartment in Paris & because of her foresight in packing atta, spices, daal, rice they could eat paranthas & daal & chawal and give the children Maggi when they wanted and how it was 'just like home'! Not a single mention of what they saw in Paris, how it was different from India, how the people were etc. If she hadn't mentioned she was in Paris, she could have been describing her daily routine in Delhi.
I felt a combination of anger, disbelief & a little regret. Anger & disbelief at the wasted vacation; to her it was enough that she could say 'Paris' and enjoy all the glamour of a foreign vacation associated with it. Regret at that she would probably never realize that it was a wasted vacation.
For me the second conversation served as a good explanation for her initial questions. In her comfortable, well settled life I don't think she ever had questions. Her path was charted out for her - education (literacy?), marriage to a 'good, wealthy catch', children (at least one boy) and then living out the rest of your life bringing up the children, of course interspersed with the mandatory foreign vacations, luxurious shopping, kitty parties maybe?, and of course questioning the people who didn't fall into this category - ".. and one boy?"!
