Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Yipdee!! I have been promoted to lead fruit picker!

Was wondering about that cliche debate of balancing family life with work... And I thought-When the heck did this actually become an issue...
I visualized my ancestors back in the caveman age....
So this is how i see it...

Mr. Mehta used to go to the forest, kill animals, drag back the carcasses, plus some fruit and berries and give it Mrs. Mehta to cook over the fire... the little mehta boys used to amuse themselves by throwing rocks at each other and playing pretend fights with animal bones....while the little mehta gurls built small caves from the mud lying around outside the cave...
Mr. Mehta came back as soon as he had collected the essentials for his family and spent time with the kiddos...teaching little rohan mehta and ketan mehta how to give blows with a club and telling stories to little nita mehta about how one day she would have a cave of her own...
Mrs. Mehta went about her work which at that time included cleaning the cave, washing the loin cloths and preventing the little mehtas from breaking their heads in..

Now I agree that the womans life has definitely more enriched today..but leaving the gender issue aside for a moment, taking society at large...I wonder if Mr. Mehta back then ever said...
"hmmm..Mr. Agarwal is managing to get more berries than I am..and getting the meatier rabbit...I have to better my performance.
Did Mehta start working longer hours to get back with a rabbit that was just a little meatier. Did the mehta family get used to the meatier rabbit and expect still more.
Did mr. mehta start missing his evening time with mrs. mehta where they sat together at the entrance of the cave and watch the sunset and talk about how little rohan mehta wasnt mastering the art of bashing animals head well enough and talk about how he'd do in the future...
Did mr. mehta miss little nita mehtas concern that the agarwals son kept pelting her with pebbles and tried to show off his fire making skills to impress her...
Did mr. mehta stay out longer and longer just so that one day his name would be carved on the tree bark above mr. agarwals' for having collected more berries
Did Mehta come home one day with an extra bunch of berries and gift of a free bunch of grapes shouting "Yipdee!! I have been promoted to lead fruit picker!!!"
...only to find nita mehta had run away with the agarwal boy to live in the posh new cave colony that had come up on the other side of the forest with special facilities like a private rock bed for each cave for washing and a private hot spring geyser for a payment of 2 rabbits every month...
Have we really evolved in every sense???

4 comments:

Manish Saini said...

ROTFL......Can't stop laughing.
But seriously interesting and humourous post on a very cliched topic.
Awaiting part 2 of the post.

the cowlick said...

lol! my husband's surname is Mehta.. and (even though I don't use it) the whole time I kept thinking you're talking about him and me!

Nandita said...

CowLick:arre su coincidence che...N gujju bhai che??? (ok..thats the extent of my gujju knowledge...though i excel in the gujju food division...eating that is)

the cowlick said...

lol.. he's not gujju.. he's punjabi.. cant decide which is worse, because I'm neither.