That Ambujam Mami was furious was evident even through her maroon and turquoise silk mask with zari bootas . Her eyes expressed the raudra rasa quite eloquently.
With my limited knowledge of the Natya Shastra , through the glass panel next to our door, I tried to mime that maybe it wasn’t such a good time for her to come over.
But Mami’s skills were superior. She used the goddess-slaying-demon pose to indicate what my fate would be if I didn’t let her in.
So I let her in.
‘What the hell is the meaning of this abomination?’ she said without preamble, displaying a news item on her phone. I tried to get a better look maintaining social distance.
‘65% increase in the sale of sex toys in India during the lockdown’ said the scarlet headline in Poster Bodoni. It was accompanied by the illustration of a woman licking her lips and holding aloft something that Murugan Stores wouldn’t be caught dead stocking.
‘Mami,’ I stuttered. ‘You are mistaken. What the delivery boy brought was an economy pack of Bhabi Ji Papad to boost my immunity...’
‘ Ada po, pa ,’ she cut me off mid-sentence. ‘As if I’ll ever think of you like that!’
Inexplicably, I felt a tad hurt by Mami’s utter belief in my gentlemanliness.
‘What is our country coming to? Do you know Tamil Nadu comes third! In ordering these asingams online.’
‘No cause for worry, Mami. Next year, we’ll come second,’ I said.
‘Are you mad?’ she said. ‘The Tamil Nadu I grew up in would have come last. We used to sing patriotic songs and collect stamps when we were young. And when we felt... er... more than we were supposed to, we watched Gemini Pictures’ Avvaiyar . The only toys we used to get were soft toys from periamma in the US. ’
‘Sundaram Mama is a genuine teddy bear,’ I said.
‘Don’t unnecessarily bring him up now,’ she said, her face going the colour of her mask.
‘What did he do now?’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Yesterday, a pair of handcuffs arrived via courier... addressed to him.’
‘So what’s wrong with that?’ I said. ‘Maybe he wants to play Robber-Police. In fact, you can have my toy guns. I have two or three lying around. ’
‘These were purple and had a lace trim,’ she said. ‘What kind of police uses those?’
‘Immoral police?’ I said, feebly attempting humour.
Mami gave me a look that she usually reserved for Sundaram Mama. Reading from the news item on my phone, I tried to console her.
‘I’m sure there is a simple explanation. Chennai is nowhere in the stats. We are still maintaining our purity. Poor Mama is innocent. Maybe he ordered doggie toys for Sri Vegan and the order got mixed up,’ I said. ‘Mumbai is first, followed by Bengaluru, and Delhi is in third position.’
‘At a time like this, it is quite uncultured of you to mention positions to me,’ she said. ‘Those statistics give me no solace. My elder sister lives in Bengaluru. And my great-aunt is in Delhi.’
I decided it wouldn’t be wise at this point to tell Mami that the article said Surat, where she got her made-to-order khakras from, was rocking the charts.
‘What is your objection, Mami, honestly?’ I said. ‘After all, we have been asked to be self-reliant.’
‘How foolish you are,’ she said. ‘How can we ever be atmanirbhar when 99% of these wretched things are made in China?’
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a satirist. He has written four books and edited an anthology.
