What strikes your mind when you hear Gowramma from far
behind? Someone who is naïve and primitive? Someone who cannot catch up with
social demands? Someone who is lacks worldly knowledge and shrewdness? Well! It
could be cumulus of all or none of these.
The very perception is steadily escalating sense of
premonition. Whilst name seldom heeds to attentivenesses, we grow under the
shadow or assumption or what is perceived under favourable notes.
I was intrigued to think and write on the matter when I
visited a restaurant last evening and observed a family with strange behaviour.
Being definitely ordinary is usual but what spills out is slightly odd or
weird. The family consisted of two couples, kids and an old man who could
probably be the father or head of the family. The father or the old man looked
mostly naïve and remained unaffected by the hissing noise of the children and boos
expressed by his daughter-in-laws. The two look-alike sons remained silent
throughout their stay at the restaurant and never got a chance to speak, or
remained quiet for good.
I was often distracted by the Germany-Italy football
match on the large screen but I tried not to fall asleep by not looking at this
family. The wives or daughter-in-laws kept scrolling through the menu,
commenting on the dishes whilst the waiter continued to wait.
One of the daughter-in-law made the bold move by asking the
waiter to explain the ingredients of a dish, justify the pricing and so on. The
entire act looked like a supernatural act and the weird sister-in-laws
thoroughly deserved a diadem for it.
On the contrary of it all, the uncanny sister-in-laws looked
very primitive and sounded utterly foolhardy. I took my eyes of the football
game to watch the proceeding on this family. One of the weird sister-in-laws
finally ordered Koithio (or mie goring) with much hesitation and when the dish
arrived, I could sense her shabbier approach in serving. She stabbed the fork
to the Omelet and the beaten egg was just about to be dropped off the bowl.
Conditionally, this made think of my younger days when these
girls grow up in conservative families with restrictive surroundings. To makes
things worse, the bridegrooms these families get too arrive from similar
background thus making them master of puppets. Beyond engineering, medicine,
sound bank-balance, two legs, hands, eyes et.al, father of the bride is mostly
fine.
The circus starts when these newly-wed couples travel to
their most desired destination, United States. Even their short visit across
the Pacific makes them perfectly placed jokers in the circus. They start
planning much ahead of time such that their kids grow into age and they forget
how they lived in their yesteryear. Such couple change their dressing, food
habits and approach to life so differently that someone like Dwight Eisenhower
and the likes would think they are actually native Americans.
Their accent
suddenly changes and I wonder if this makes William Shakespeare forget his own.
The stupidity is yet to come. Their first visit back home
completes the circus. Everything back home is compared to their newly adapted
township. Cleanliness becomes paramount all of a sudden. Every act is questioned
for rationale and so on and forth.
Adding more agony to the train of consequences, they go on
endlessly appreciating their newly adapted township and market their appeal.
Initially, friends and foes ignore the blast as excitement before someone
recommends them to visit the nearest mental asylum. Perhaps, this does not
change them either.
The character ‘Gowramma’ makes more sense introducing here
at this point. This also added more juice to the goulash. Once the Gowramma is
now a United States return and now knows it all. The autonomous structure of
our society sadly upholds such Gowrammas effectively making a sad system.
Mother Earth has been bearing such nuisance for a long time and
adding more vacant dreams to all of us. Years roll by, times do change and truth
around us are harder in disguise as we face tomorrow. These Gowrammas are
increasingly becoming common as I continue to wonder how a trip to the town
across the Pacific can change one’s life so much.
I continue to wonder anyway.