NOTE: All characters and venues are totally fictional; any semblance to real persons or places is merely coincidental.
On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving day, everybody woke up late. Kiran had stayed the night, in the third bedroom upstairs. Ana made coffee, pancakes, eggs, ham and bacon breakfast. They all had breakfast just before noon. Then Kiran left followed by Ana and Kamla. The women went shopping to be followed by a Hindi Movie somewhere. After their brunch, Benny and Reddy lazed the afternoon away. They sat in lazy boy chairs, pushed the back-rest all the way back, and had their legs stretched out. Benny was looking at the ceiling fixtures, while he asked Reddy more questions about Chennai, Reddy's days in college and work, and his family. And then he closed his eyes and told him about coming to America.
"…yep..we were refugees…when we first came to America…but not poor….the Patels had saved some of their shillings in Kenya and England….Ugandan money those days was worth something… they transferred some money over here… and bought a motel…"
Reddy thought he had heard some of these before from Sheila; but he didn't interrupt.
"…only 5% down…in them days… get 50% fill in motel every month….we can pay the mortgage and eat….even meat once in a while…hehhheheh....the patels didn't know....Kamla ate meat wit' me....hehehhhhehe...your auntie went to college….my Kamla…aaahhh…she is a fine looking lady now…30 years ago….she was a sweet, pretty young thing…college boys were crazy about her..….after college…I thought for sure…she'd marry someone young…."
Reddy wondered whether this is the continuation of where Sheila had left off..
"…but then…Kamla stayed…wit' me ! old Benny ! women !…..never know what they are thinking…..and now….we've got each other for good"
Then Benny fell quiet for a few minutes, before speaking up again:
"….and Ana…she's just like a child to Kamla and me….one day….for sure….she'd marry and leave…(sigh...long pause)…you know why I'm telling you this bhoy ?.."
Benny still had his eyes closed. Reddy didn't answer that question. Benny continued on…
" …when you find a nice girl…and for whatever reason…..she'd be stupid enough to marry you….you go right ahead.…you go along, and then see what happens …..may be in a few years, you treat her nice, and…if your luck holds out…you'd have a nice girl for good….and you'd be livin' a life….you never knew you deserved…"
To Reddy this sounded more like summing up Benny's life rather than advice to him. There were no nice girls, stupid or otherwise, clamoring to marry him right then.
Then Benny went quiet for a long 10 minutes. Then he opened his eyes and said, "….Ana will take you out for some painting work tomorrow….you know….that empty place we'd been in already….you help her paint that....ok ? ". Then Benny fell asleep. Reddy stayed in the lazy boy chair for a while longer to see if Benny would wake up and say something more. When he heard Benny's snoring, he got up, went upstairs, put on his shoes and jacket and went out for a small walk in the neighborhood.
All the leaves had fallen already and the air was crisp and cold. Reddy thought about all the snippets of the Benny story, those from his mother and brother in Chennai, from Sheila in California, and then from Benny himself. As he walked with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets, he wondered whether running away from home at a young age offered more opportunities for a life like Benny's. Reddy's leaving home to come to America was not exactly "running away"; but then he was far away from home, and among relative strangers, and quite uncertain about what his future held and how he'd get anywhere.
He wondered what could he do if he were to be forced to fend for himself in a strange new land. His resolution to "Be Like Benny!" sounded like the old chant of "Be Like Mike !", referring to the basketball star Michael Jordan. Thinking of this Reddy laughed out loud. There was no one about in that residential neighborhood that Friday. Everybody had likely gone shopping or napping at home like Benny. Good cheerleading chant aside, he was not sure he'd have the gumption to survive like Benny had. When he went home, Benny was awake, watching news on the TV. Ana and Kamla returned later, around 7 PM, carrying a few shopping bags. They were chatting very excitedly about the movie they had seen.
Kamla went to the kitchen and puttered; she was getting dinner ready. Ana went to a part of the basement, next to the family room, where they had some exercise equipment. Reddy heard motor noises, went and opened the door to that room, and looked in. Ana was in T-shirt and shorts, running on a treadmill listening to a small radio or music player clipped to her waist. Unlike her face, and arms, her legs did not have any freckles. Reddy continued watching her run for a couple of minutes, mesmerized by the sight; Ana turned, took one of her hands off the side bar she was holding and waved as she continued running. Reddy was startled by that; he felt he ought not to have looked. He withdrew immediately and softly closed that door. He couldn't tell if Ana minded that intrusion or not.
That night they ate dinner after 8 PM, rotis and take out subjis the girls had brought from their afternoon outing. During dinner, both Kamla and Ana competed to tell Benny the story of the movie. Benny was very good at sharing his attention with both of them with changing eye contacts and questions. Reddy was quite impressed with the affectionate way that Ana behaved with his uncle and aunt.
The next morning, Ana was up very early. After taking shower and getting ready, she knocked on Reddy's room door and called him," Reddeee…get up and shower, then we can eat and go……Ohh…wear old clothes…we are working today…"
After shower, Reddy chose the same old clothes he wore to the apartment previously. Then went down to the kitchen. Ana was there in an old short sleeve faded green T-shirt and a very used off-white painter's bib-pants over that. The pants seemed to highlight her hips; the splats of blue paint on her butt were not easily ignorable. She had her head covered in a floral babushka with all her hair wrapped up within it. They ate scrambled eggs, toast, juice and coffee. Benny and Kamla were not up yet. So Ana and Reddy went about their preparations quietly. Ana had sandwiches, coffee in a flask and a few cans of diet soda in a bag to take along. Then they went out in the van, Ana driving. Now she had on a yellow baseball cap over the babushka; she gave him an old Detroit-Lions logo cap from the van. When he wore that cap, he looked like a hispanic migrant.
After they got to their destination, they made several trips between the van and the apartment to carry in the materials. Plastic buckets with masking tape, painting rolls brushes and several scrapers, tools, sandpaper, wood block, filler compound, paint roller pans, couple of step stools, paper towels, cloth rags and a few folded drop cloths. When Reddy carried in the 5 gallon pail of the paint, Ana carried a shop-vac and walking ahead of him, opened and held the doors for him. At the very end, She brought in the food items and put them in the fridge.
She inspected all the work that Benny and Reddy had done already in that apartment. Then asked asked Reddy if he had painted before. He said "no". She assured him that it was an easy job, especially because there were two of them, and explained the steps as they went along. First, they took off all the curtains, folded them and put them in a plastic bag.
They each took cans of filler compound and inspected all the walls once again and filled any holes that Benny had skipped, filled dimples from previous work and made the surfaces flat.
Then she switched off the main power and asked Reddy to remove all the face plates of switches and sockets. She asked him to tape the screws behind the face plates, so they wont be lost when needed to put back. At that point Reddy got the technique and he went ahead with the project in all the rooms. Ana started masking all the wood work at the base, windows and closets. Reddy came back, observed her for a bit, then took a couple of rolls of masking tape and went into the other rooms. Ana reminded him that doing a clean job is better than speed and hurry-up. He was very careful; he wanted Ana to give a good report to Benny. After working without stopping for an hour, they had the whole apartment masked and ready for paint. She took off her shoes and set them near the entrance door, and told Reddy that it is best to paint without shoes, because there is less of a danger of tripping and also there'd be no accidental drips of paint on their shoes. He followed her example.
Ana inspected all the taping and said," you did very nicely"; Reddy was happy. Then she gave him a block of wood and some sand paper. She took him around and they both looked at walls, she felt some uneven surfaces with her palm and asked him to sand it away. After showing a couple of locations, he got the idea and went ahead with the preparation of the walls on his own.
Ana sat on on the living room floor and took a coffee break. When he was finished with his wall preparation, she gave him some coffee. After the break, she said," now we are ready to go and paint…let us start with this large living room first….I will paint one side…and you the other side…". She gave him a goggles with a wrap around elastic; she wore safety glasses that looked like regular spectacles, but had side shields. They were painting the whole place with a semi-gloss, egg-shell color, interior paint.
She taught him how to use the drop cloth, paint the corners and edges with brushes first before moving to rollers for open surfaces. Each had their own small two-step ladder. As they were both tall, they did not need to use the step ladders much. For a few minutes, Reddy watched her: when she bent and rolled the paint on the paint pan, how she picked up the loaded roller without drips, then straightened and stepped up on to the ladder near the opposite wall. Reddy felt that all of the hard work of hauling materials up to the apartment just paid off in that scene he was watching:
Ana looked like the center piece of a mural on the opposite wall. A shapely tall girl in off-white painter's pants, and faded green T-shirt, standing on a small step ladder, the bill of her yellow cap turned around to her back, her floral babushka tail peeping out from under that bill, blue splats of paint on her seat asking for a look, one hand supporting herself on the speckled wall, and the other in a parrot green latex glove holding the handle of the paint roller moving on the wall. He wished he had a camera.
After a few seconds of enjoying that mural scene, he shook his head clear and decided to concentrate on the painting work she was doing. Reddy noticed how Ana rolled the paint on the wall in short lengths so that the paint thickness was even, and slightly overlapping from one swipe to the next. He started painting on his side of the room; he took her advice about being good rather than fast and did a fairly good job on his side of the room.
After the living room, they both went to different bedrooms and painted. They worked steadily and finished most of their work by about 1 PM. Only the kitchen and bathroom remained. Ana went around with a wet towel and inspected their work to make sure there aren't any drips on the woodwork. Then she placed a piece of shelving board between the two small step ladders pulled together on the living room floor, to make a table for their lunch. They both sat on the floor to eat lunch. She served sandwiches on paper plates and opened a couple of diet sodas. Reddy's neck and upper arm muscles were sore. If he had been playing basketball everyday, he'd been able to tackle the painting job a lot easier, he thought.
Ana smiled and said,"bon appétit". Reddy smiled back and bit into the game-hen masala sandwich between toasted bread slices. As he ate, he recalled a time a few years ago when he sat on the floor and ate off a low table. His family had gone to a village near Anantapur for a "girl-dekko" for his brother. The girl's family did not have many chairs; the older gentlemen from both the households had taken the few cane sofas they had in their living room. However, they had very nice ornamental mats on a very large floor carpet. Some of the mats even had cushions within them. They had a low-table and served tiffin items on that. The "girl" brought coffee and served. He and his brother had to sit on the floor, side by side, and chin up to that table and eat, while the women of the household (and others who peeked in from all doors and windows to that room) watched them. The "girl" sat at a distance next to his mother and sister and pretended not to watch them as well. There were hushed conversations about who the groom was and whether the groom was always hunch backed or the low table was making him so.
Ana interrupted"…what's that for ?…..": she had noticed his smile, that was obviously from something he had been thinking. He realized that Ana too had been watching him eat. He giggled at that thought of Ana being the object of his "girl-dekko" visit. Then explained what he had been thinking. He told Ana about the "girl-dekko" visit to see his sister-in-law before her marriage to his brother and how they had to sit on the floor and eat off a small table set in front of them. And how every move made by the eaters were watched by all close relatives of both families. Ana asked,"….so if you eat well...and not messy…you get good points…?". Reddy said,"…yes…that is part of the show..". Ana laughed and said,"…then you better wipe the corners…", and pointed at his mouth. Reddy wiped the crumbs off, and explained how the "girl-dekko" was often more of a formality, and how previous meetings between the various others in the two families might have already squared the deal. Ana thought about that for a moment, and said,"…mmmhh.. like big summit meeting…hanh ?….everybody talked already and prepared the documents….then america and russia presidents will come together….sign ….exchange folders ….and take photos..". Reddy said,"…yes…something like that...mmmh..these are good sandwiches...very different and quite nice...thank you....I can paint rooms for you anytime..if you promise to come, supervise and give me sandwiches...".
"..OK..you are hired..", said Ana, and laughed.
After lunch, Ana sent Reddy to paint the bathroom. It required the careful removal of the big mirror above the sink and painting behind it. She went to the kitchen to complete the work there. While in the bathroom, Reddy continued to think about the girl-dekko scheme in India. He figured that an activity together for the boy and girl would be a much more of a natural "girl-dekko" than the meet-eat-and-inspect scenario: something like wearing old clothes and painting a few rooms together.....and one watching the other when working. Reddy thought it made perfect sense why people fell in love at schools and work places.
In the Kitchen, Ana was thinking about a premarital event as well: her thoughts were about how she was going to bring about a serious talk with Reddy that very day, if possible, about an arranged marriage. Once in a while she'd stop and consider something and the roller would make a thicker smudge on the wall; then she would dismiss that thought and roll the smudge flat. Finally, she decided to just let the day go forward without trying to contrive the both of them into "that talk".
Note:
The details on painting written in this episode are more about boy/girl-dekko than getting some egg-shell semi-gloss flat on the walls. Perseverance, patience, tolerance, ability to stay focussed on the work, being careful not to break something and considerate, enjoying each others' presence/company and helping each other are all key attributes that help to put-up with someone day-after-day...and perhaps eventually even come to love that person. Of course, it never hurts to look hot in a pair of old painter's pants and make good sandwiches from dinner left-overs. It is a good thing too, when the one who receives the niceties recognizes and appreciates by word, gestures, body language and actions that are appropriate. Many might know that boy/girl-dekko does not end after marriage; it continues. It is just that the couple get to see more of each other.
Life is a complex dance.
Synopsis: Munni spends a day with the girl he'd marry; and follows her instructions
Munni's LIA - Episode 15
The girl "dekko" event
On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving day, everybody woke up late. Kiran had stayed the night, in the third bedroom upstairs. Ana made coffee, pancakes, eggs, ham and bacon breakfast. They all had breakfast just before noon. Then Kiran left followed by Ana and Kamla. The women went shopping to be followed by a Hindi Movie somewhere. After their brunch, Benny and Reddy lazed the afternoon away. They sat in lazy boy chairs, pushed the back-rest all the way back, and had their legs stretched out. Benny was looking at the ceiling fixtures, while he asked Reddy more questions about Chennai, Reddy's days in college and work, and his family. And then he closed his eyes and told him about coming to America.
"…yep..we were refugees…when we first came to America…but not poor….the Patels had saved some of their shillings in Kenya and England….Ugandan money those days was worth something… they transferred some money over here… and bought a motel…"
Reddy thought he had heard some of these before from Sheila; but he didn't interrupt.
"…only 5% down…in them days… get 50% fill in motel every month….we can pay the mortgage and eat….even meat once in a while…hehhheheh....the patels didn't know....Kamla ate meat wit' me....hehehhhhehe...your auntie went to college….my Kamla…aaahhh…she is a fine looking lady now…30 years ago….she was a sweet, pretty young thing…college boys were crazy about her..….after college…I thought for sure…she'd marry someone young…."
Reddy wondered whether this is the continuation of where Sheila had left off..
"…but then…Kamla stayed…wit' me ! old Benny ! women !…..never know what they are thinking…..and now….we've got each other for good"
Then Benny fell quiet for a few minutes, before speaking up again:
"….and Ana…she's just like a child to Kamla and me….one day….for sure….she'd marry and leave…(sigh...long pause)…you know why I'm telling you this bhoy ?.."
Benny still had his eyes closed. Reddy didn't answer that question. Benny continued on…
" …when you find a nice girl…and for whatever reason…..she'd be stupid enough to marry you….you go right ahead.…you go along, and then see what happens …..may be in a few years, you treat her nice, and…if your luck holds out…you'd have a nice girl for good….and you'd be livin' a life….you never knew you deserved…"
To Reddy this sounded more like summing up Benny's life rather than advice to him. There were no nice girls, stupid or otherwise, clamoring to marry him right then.
Then Benny went quiet for a long 10 minutes. Then he opened his eyes and said, "….Ana will take you out for some painting work tomorrow….you know….that empty place we'd been in already….you help her paint that....ok ? ". Then Benny fell asleep. Reddy stayed in the lazy boy chair for a while longer to see if Benny would wake up and say something more. When he heard Benny's snoring, he got up, went upstairs, put on his shoes and jacket and went out for a small walk in the neighborhood.
All the leaves had fallen already and the air was crisp and cold. Reddy thought about all the snippets of the Benny story, those from his mother and brother in Chennai, from Sheila in California, and then from Benny himself. As he walked with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets, he wondered whether running away from home at a young age offered more opportunities for a life like Benny's. Reddy's leaving home to come to America was not exactly "running away"; but then he was far away from home, and among relative strangers, and quite uncertain about what his future held and how he'd get anywhere.
He wondered what could he do if he were to be forced to fend for himself in a strange new land. His resolution to "Be Like Benny!" sounded like the old chant of "Be Like Mike !", referring to the basketball star Michael Jordan. Thinking of this Reddy laughed out loud. There was no one about in that residential neighborhood that Friday. Everybody had likely gone shopping or napping at home like Benny. Good cheerleading chant aside, he was not sure he'd have the gumption to survive like Benny had. When he went home, Benny was awake, watching news on the TV. Ana and Kamla returned later, around 7 PM, carrying a few shopping bags. They were chatting very excitedly about the movie they had seen.
Kamla went to the kitchen and puttered; she was getting dinner ready. Ana went to a part of the basement, next to the family room, where they had some exercise equipment. Reddy heard motor noises, went and opened the door to that room, and looked in. Ana was in T-shirt and shorts, running on a treadmill listening to a small radio or music player clipped to her waist. Unlike her face, and arms, her legs did not have any freckles. Reddy continued watching her run for a couple of minutes, mesmerized by the sight; Ana turned, took one of her hands off the side bar she was holding and waved as she continued running. Reddy was startled by that; he felt he ought not to have looked. He withdrew immediately and softly closed that door. He couldn't tell if Ana minded that intrusion or not.
That night they ate dinner after 8 PM, rotis and take out subjis the girls had brought from their afternoon outing. During dinner, both Kamla and Ana competed to tell Benny the story of the movie. Benny was very good at sharing his attention with both of them with changing eye contacts and questions. Reddy was quite impressed with the affectionate way that Ana behaved with his uncle and aunt.
....<snip>...a dream edited out....<snip>.....
The next morning, Ana was up very early. After taking shower and getting ready, she knocked on Reddy's room door and called him," Reddeee…get up and shower, then we can eat and go……Ohh…wear old clothes…we are working today…"
After shower, Reddy chose the same old clothes he wore to the apartment previously. Then went down to the kitchen. Ana was there in an old short sleeve faded green T-shirt and a very used off-white painter's bib-pants over that. The pants seemed to highlight her hips; the splats of blue paint on her butt were not easily ignorable. She had her head covered in a floral babushka with all her hair wrapped up within it. They ate scrambled eggs, toast, juice and coffee. Benny and Kamla were not up yet. So Ana and Reddy went about their preparations quietly. Ana had sandwiches, coffee in a flask and a few cans of diet soda in a bag to take along. Then they went out in the van, Ana driving. Now she had on a yellow baseball cap over the babushka; she gave him an old Detroit-Lions logo cap from the van. When he wore that cap, he looked like a hispanic migrant.
After they got to their destination, they made several trips between the van and the apartment to carry in the materials. Plastic buckets with masking tape, painting rolls brushes and several scrapers, tools, sandpaper, wood block, filler compound, paint roller pans, couple of step stools, paper towels, cloth rags and a few folded drop cloths. When Reddy carried in the 5 gallon pail of the paint, Ana carried a shop-vac and walking ahead of him, opened and held the doors for him. At the very end, She brought in the food items and put them in the fridge.
She inspected all the work that Benny and Reddy had done already in that apartment. Then asked asked Reddy if he had painted before. He said "no". She assured him that it was an easy job, especially because there were two of them, and explained the steps as they went along. First, they took off all the curtains, folded them and put them in a plastic bag.
They each took cans of filler compound and inspected all the walls once again and filled any holes that Benny had skipped, filled dimples from previous work and made the surfaces flat.
Then she switched off the main power and asked Reddy to remove all the face plates of switches and sockets. She asked him to tape the screws behind the face plates, so they wont be lost when needed to put back. At that point Reddy got the technique and he went ahead with the project in all the rooms. Ana started masking all the wood work at the base, windows and closets. Reddy came back, observed her for a bit, then took a couple of rolls of masking tape and went into the other rooms. Ana reminded him that doing a clean job is better than speed and hurry-up. He was very careful; he wanted Ana to give a good report to Benny. After working without stopping for an hour, they had the whole apartment masked and ready for paint. She took off her shoes and set them near the entrance door, and told Reddy that it is best to paint without shoes, because there is less of a danger of tripping and also there'd be no accidental drips of paint on their shoes. He followed her example.
Ana inspected all the taping and said," you did very nicely"; Reddy was happy. Then she gave him a block of wood and some sand paper. She took him around and they both looked at walls, she felt some uneven surfaces with her palm and asked him to sand it away. After showing a couple of locations, he got the idea and went ahead with the preparation of the walls on his own.
Ana sat on on the living room floor and took a coffee break. When he was finished with his wall preparation, she gave him some coffee. After the break, she said," now we are ready to go and paint…let us start with this large living room first….I will paint one side…and you the other side…". She gave him a goggles with a wrap around elastic; she wore safety glasses that looked like regular spectacles, but had side shields. They were painting the whole place with a semi-gloss, egg-shell color, interior paint.
She taught him how to use the drop cloth, paint the corners and edges with brushes first before moving to rollers for open surfaces. Each had their own small two-step ladder. As they were both tall, they did not need to use the step ladders much. For a few minutes, Reddy watched her: when she bent and rolled the paint on the paint pan, how she picked up the loaded roller without drips, then straightened and stepped up on to the ladder near the opposite wall. Reddy felt that all of the hard work of hauling materials up to the apartment just paid off in that scene he was watching:
Ana looked like the center piece of a mural on the opposite wall. A shapely tall girl in off-white painter's pants, and faded green T-shirt, standing on a small step ladder, the bill of her yellow cap turned around to her back, her floral babushka tail peeping out from under that bill, blue splats of paint on her seat asking for a look, one hand supporting herself on the speckled wall, and the other in a parrot green latex glove holding the handle of the paint roller moving on the wall. He wished he had a camera.
After a few seconds of enjoying that mural scene, he shook his head clear and decided to concentrate on the painting work she was doing. Reddy noticed how Ana rolled the paint on the wall in short lengths so that the paint thickness was even, and slightly overlapping from one swipe to the next. He started painting on his side of the room; he took her advice about being good rather than fast and did a fairly good job on his side of the room.
After the living room, they both went to different bedrooms and painted. They worked steadily and finished most of their work by about 1 PM. Only the kitchen and bathroom remained. Ana went around with a wet towel and inspected their work to make sure there aren't any drips on the woodwork. Then she placed a piece of shelving board between the two small step ladders pulled together on the living room floor, to make a table for their lunch. They both sat on the floor to eat lunch. She served sandwiches on paper plates and opened a couple of diet sodas. Reddy's neck and upper arm muscles were sore. If he had been playing basketball everyday, he'd been able to tackle the painting job a lot easier, he thought.
Ana smiled and said,"bon appétit". Reddy smiled back and bit into the game-hen masala sandwich between toasted bread slices. As he ate, he recalled a time a few years ago when he sat on the floor and ate off a low table. His family had gone to a village near Anantapur for a "girl-dekko" for his brother. The girl's family did not have many chairs; the older gentlemen from both the households had taken the few cane sofas they had in their living room. However, they had very nice ornamental mats on a very large floor carpet. Some of the mats even had cushions within them. They had a low-table and served tiffin items on that. The "girl" brought coffee and served. He and his brother had to sit on the floor, side by side, and chin up to that table and eat, while the women of the household (and others who peeked in from all doors and windows to that room) watched them. The "girl" sat at a distance next to his mother and sister and pretended not to watch them as well. There were hushed conversations about who the groom was and whether the groom was always hunch backed or the low table was making him so.
Ana interrupted"…what's that for ?…..": she had noticed his smile, that was obviously from something he had been thinking. He realized that Ana too had been watching him eat. He giggled at that thought of Ana being the object of his "girl-dekko" visit. Then explained what he had been thinking. He told Ana about the "girl-dekko" visit to see his sister-in-law before her marriage to his brother and how they had to sit on the floor and eat off a small table set in front of them. And how every move made by the eaters were watched by all close relatives of both families. Ana asked,"….so if you eat well...and not messy…you get good points…?". Reddy said,"…yes…that is part of the show..". Ana laughed and said,"…then you better wipe the corners…", and pointed at his mouth. Reddy wiped the crumbs off, and explained how the "girl-dekko" was often more of a formality, and how previous meetings between the various others in the two families might have already squared the deal. Ana thought about that for a moment, and said,"…mmmhh.. like big summit meeting…hanh ?….everybody talked already and prepared the documents….then america and russia presidents will come together….sign ….exchange folders ….and take photos..". Reddy said,"…yes…something like that...mmmh..these are good sandwiches...very different and quite nice...thank you....I can paint rooms for you anytime..if you promise to come, supervise and give me sandwiches...".
"..OK..you are hired..", said Ana, and laughed.
After lunch, Ana sent Reddy to paint the bathroom. It required the careful removal of the big mirror above the sink and painting behind it. She went to the kitchen to complete the work there. While in the bathroom, Reddy continued to think about the girl-dekko scheme in India. He figured that an activity together for the boy and girl would be a much more of a natural "girl-dekko" than the meet-eat-and-inspect scenario: something like wearing old clothes and painting a few rooms together.....and one watching the other when working. Reddy thought it made perfect sense why people fell in love at schools and work places.
In the Kitchen, Ana was thinking about a premarital event as well: her thoughts were about how she was going to bring about a serious talk with Reddy that very day, if possible, about an arranged marriage. Once in a while she'd stop and consider something and the roller would make a thicker smudge on the wall; then she would dismiss that thought and roll the smudge flat. Finally, she decided to just let the day go forward without trying to contrive the both of them into "that talk".
-------
----o0o----------
----o0o----------Note:
The details on painting written in this episode are more about boy/girl-dekko than getting some egg-shell semi-gloss flat on the walls. Perseverance, patience, tolerance, ability to stay focussed on the work, being careful not to break something and considerate, enjoying each others' presence/company and helping each other are all key attributes that help to put-up with someone day-after-day...and perhaps eventually even come to love that person. Of course, it never hurts to look hot in a pair of old painter's pants and make good sandwiches from dinner left-overs. It is a good thing too, when the one who receives the niceties recognizes and appreciates by word, gestures, body language and actions that are appropriate. Many might know that boy/girl-dekko does not end after marriage; it continues. It is just that the couple get to see more of each other.
Life is a complex dance.
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