8 Tips for Dealing with Difficult Relatives Over the Holidays
It used to be that when schools let off for the summer, we kids were shanghaied alongside six-unit tiffin carriers, thermos flasks and rolled up bedding to our 'native places' to be pressed into the bosoms of sundry aunts, uncles, granparents, cousins and other animals in the name of the 'summer vacation'. These jamborees usually ended in a few tearful aunts, a broken heirloom, smouldering uncles and a black eye on your cousin's fat face that would last a term full of boasting. I hope it is so today too, in the time of abacus and keyboard and salsa and baking class going children (not to mention the home tuitions, coaching classes and pre-Kota entrance exams), for today's kids aren't getting enough torture and chartere character-building lessons.
But in case you do find yourself trapped in a family function this summer, and if you're a Tam most likely a wedding with its conjeevaram silks and wedding hall flames in an ill-ventilated wedding hall in Chennai, here are some tips to help you cope.
1. Before you walk into the situation, spend a few minutes thinking about how you want to behave. It's 40 degrees Celcius outside, your rich cousins are busy showing off pics of their visit to Tierra del Fuego, taken on panorama on their iPhone 6s, your poorer cousins have gotten bored of admiring your snaps of your vacation to Munnar, taken on your Moto E2. You want something to happen very fast. You want a situation. Shouting at someone's kid for a perfectly innocent mistake is a great way to start. The resultant family feud will last thirty years and have enough masala left over for your kids' kids. Blaming someone for filching late Aunt Gauramma's pearl necklace which she always intended to give to you is another. This sets off an interesting set of blame games, which if played astutely, will entertain you for weeks. So you want to remain irascible and pugnacious all the time.
2. Think about how topics that seem innocuous to you might upset someone else. You want to collect these little tidbits about everybody. Like how cousin Suresh does not like hair in his sambar, or how Uncle Parameshwaran will explode if his afternoon nap is disturbed. Then you want to go about obtaining cousin Geetha's hair (from the bathroom after she's had a bath) and putting it in cousin Suresh's sambar surreptitiously; or getting sister Sushmitha's kid to start bawling uncontrollably just when Uncle Parameshwaran has settled in for his nap. You must then start a loud discussion with some of the elder women about how it is high time cousin Geetha saw a doctor about her hairfall, and how sister Sushmitha has no skill in rearing children.
3. Avoid strife. Of course. The noise is unbearable, and there might be things thrown at you. It is advised that you find a neighbour's house within hearing and viewing distance when the strife caused by the situations you created in 1 & 2 begins to happen. Remember that you must be far enough from any projectiles, but not too far that you cannot give impartial eyewitness accounts to irate family elders afterwards.
4. Don't drink much alcohol. Stick to beers even if it is a Glenmorangie that New Jersey Srinivasan bought on a stopover at Glasgow. You want to be sober enough to listen very carefully to and completely memorise the drunken rants of your cousins when they've had one too many. Then you can bring these up at private moments when you might be in need of a wee bit of cash, or your own kid is in a spot and needs bailing out. You may have to blurt out the occasional secret just to show that you do not make empty threats.
5. As best you can, play your part in the tradition. The best being, of course, after you have demonstrably fallen ill or hurt a limb. This way you get a ringside view of everyone fooling about as they get on with the household chores, or the festive decorations, or the marriage arrangements or whatever. It also helps to keep up an unhelpful commentary while your cousins cannot challenge you to do your 'rightful share' of the work. However, be careful not to feign any digestive system-related troubles, lest you be left bereft of your rightful share of laddoos, sweets and other delicious stuff your sweet aunt Susheela makes.
6. Know when to stop. And where. Most useful when everyone has had a long day and you have run out of commentary and some of your smarter relatives are getting doubts about your illness. Self-preservation is important.
7. Don't stuff yourself. You might regret not being able to eat the hot jalebis your grandma sprung on you, just after you had demolished two metric tonnes of her laddoos. And be selective, keep the best for yourself and let your cousins stuff themselves on the mysore pak that's not sweet enough or the murukku that wasn't fried completely.
8. Find reasons to be grateful. You do want to return next summer to enjoy the scenes you will precipitate with your cunning. If your cousins had been any smarter, you wouldn't have had as fun a holiday as you just did!
(Gretchen Rubin's original post can be read here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gretchen-rubin/difficult-relatives-holiday-season_b_788259.html?ref=email_share)
1. Before you walk into the situation, spend a few minutes thinking about how you want to behave. It's 40 degrees Celcius outside, your rich cousins are busy showing off pics of their visit to Tierra del Fuego, taken on panorama on their iPhone 6s, your poorer cousins have gotten bored of admiring your snaps of your vacation to Munnar, taken on your Moto E2. You want something to happen very fast. You want a situation. Shouting at someone's kid for a perfectly innocent mistake is a great way to start. The resultant family feud will last thirty years and have enough masala left over for your kids' kids. Blaming someone for filching late Aunt Gauramma's pearl necklace which she always intended to give to you is another. This sets off an interesting set of blame games, which if played astutely, will entertain you for weeks. So you want to remain irascible and pugnacious all the time.
2. Think about how topics that seem innocuous to you might upset someone else. You want to collect these little tidbits about everybody. Like how cousin Suresh does not like hair in his sambar, or how Uncle Parameshwaran will explode if his afternoon nap is disturbed. Then you want to go about obtaining cousin Geetha's hair (from the bathroom after she's had a bath) and putting it in cousin Suresh's sambar surreptitiously; or getting sister Sushmitha's kid to start bawling uncontrollably just when Uncle Parameshwaran has settled in for his nap. You must then start a loud discussion with some of the elder women about how it is high time cousin Geetha saw a doctor about her hairfall, and how sister Sushmitha has no skill in rearing children.
3. Avoid strife. Of course. The noise is unbearable, and there might be things thrown at you. It is advised that you find a neighbour's house within hearing and viewing distance when the strife caused by the situations you created in 1 & 2 begins to happen. Remember that you must be far enough from any projectiles, but not too far that you cannot give impartial eyewitness accounts to irate family elders afterwards.
4. Don't drink much alcohol. Stick to beers even if it is a Glenmorangie that New Jersey Srinivasan bought on a stopover at Glasgow. You want to be sober enough to listen very carefully to and completely memorise the drunken rants of your cousins when they've had one too many. Then you can bring these up at private moments when you might be in need of a wee bit of cash, or your own kid is in a spot and needs bailing out. You may have to blurt out the occasional secret just to show that you do not make empty threats.
5. As best you can, play your part in the tradition. The best being, of course, after you have demonstrably fallen ill or hurt a limb. This way you get a ringside view of everyone fooling about as they get on with the household chores, or the festive decorations, or the marriage arrangements or whatever. It also helps to keep up an unhelpful commentary while your cousins cannot challenge you to do your 'rightful share' of the work. However, be careful not to feign any digestive system-related troubles, lest you be left bereft of your rightful share of laddoos, sweets and other delicious stuff your sweet aunt Susheela makes.
6. Know when to stop. And where. Most useful when everyone has had a long day and you have run out of commentary and some of your smarter relatives are getting doubts about your illness. Self-preservation is important.
7. Don't stuff yourself. You might regret not being able to eat the hot jalebis your grandma sprung on you, just after you had demolished two metric tonnes of her laddoos. And be selective, keep the best for yourself and let your cousins stuff themselves on the mysore pak that's not sweet enough or the murukku that wasn't fried completely.
8. Find reasons to be grateful. You do want to return next summer to enjoy the scenes you will precipitate with your cunning. If your cousins had been any smarter, you wouldn't have had as fun a holiday as you just did!
(Gretchen Rubin's original post can be read here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gretchen-rubin/difficult-relatives-holiday-season_b_788259.html?ref=email_share)
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