Adults will always be children

Age is only a number. Nowhere is this truer than in the minds of Indian parents. Regardless of size, stature, maturity, etc, an offspring’s age remains frozen somewhere between 2 & 6 years. Let’s take my brother-in-law for instance, a 26 year old, fully self-sufficient, sport crazy, poker loving, man’s man who is a Executive at Microsoft becomes nothing more than a cuddly “ladla” (munchkin) when he walks into his parent’s house. In the eyes of the parents, the said manly man’ suit falls off his shoulder’s, his size shrinks to the size of a football, and he’s back in diapers as soon as he crosses the threshhold.  

This is the scene that unfolded the first time I went with him to his parent’s house for an informal lunch after the honeymoon. It was at best hilarious for me and at worst insulting and embarrassing for him. As soon as we walked into the house his dad looked up from the paper and almost yelled “Rey Bablu!!! … you’ve finally come back!!” “Rey” being the preferred term of endearment for a “young-un”; the term basically carries no respect with it whatsoever and is used to refer to someone subordinate. Not in a mean way of course… it’s a term of endearment when used for younger family members but it basically destroys any sort of deference/respect the referenced person might command. I watched him slump his shoulders and give up as he crossed that threshold… I could almost hear his brain begging the floor to open up and swallow him up with every step.

What proceeded was like the marathon of all cuddlympics. First off… he kissed him… not directly on the cheek but figuratively, you know via the motion where one grabs a cheek of a baby then uses the hand to traverse the distance between the baby’s cheek and their lips? That’s what his dad did to him. Quite a few times too... all the while making the “muah” “muah” “muah” noises one makes when kissing his fingertips with his lips. I could actually see the embarrassment steaming out of him while he looked at me hoping either that he’d die or that I’d disappear. I didn’t budge. 

His dad did this to him while calling him his little darling and telling him how much he missed him and fawned over him with enough zeal to make a 5 year old blush. That’s when his mom came and took it up a notch which at that time I didn’t think was possible. His mom built on the “kissing”… she actually came running up to him and squeezed his cheeks… the one way pinches the chubby cheeks of a baby and slaps them playfully. She also proceeded to call him the most amazing litany of baby-ing terms which roughly translated would probably be synonymous with cuddly/wuddly, huggy/wuggy & snugglebunny. 

Sadly Youtube lost out an instant hit due to my pre-historic phone’s lack of a camera.