The family that calls together, stays together

Needless to say, I come from a crazy family. An ultra-paranoid Dad, a comically funny mom, and an eternally disinterested brother. I'm sure most families are crazy, even though we are taught from time immemorial to look at and love our families more seriously and solemnly than Manmohan singh's unchanging expression. But lets face it, everyone is crazy in his or her own way, and hence a family, whichever it is, is collectively bonkers.

Along with my own nuclear nincompoops, my extended family is made of specimens who can put the family in Arrested Development to shame. I have a 55 year old uncle who thinks he is a dude and every girl is giving him come-hither looks, I have an aunt who has rediscovered haircuts at 60, I have cousins who have tried to sell their bikes to mango vendors in the pursuit of god-knows-what, cousins who have got married at 17 and are right now, one step away from being grandmoms at 40, cousins who have flunked 10th grade and say they are doing M.Com to whichever lucky soul that pops the inevitable question, a grandmom who is on the eternal train from one place to another and gives us an STD call once a month. So basically, everyone is a nut case.

This family of mine also has an obsession. Marriage. No one, and I mean not even a louse on my nephew's head, cares if you are an IITian, Salman Khan or even if you are Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself, unless you are married. And they are not even sexist. Men and women are treated alike if they are not married by the "old" age of 23.

Their single handed, doubtless trust in the occasion of a marriage is astounding. Whether they care about the institution is another question. I mean, who cares whether the bride and groom like each other or not, In my family, we all just want to wear our Kanjeevaram sarees, and diamond necklaces and strut around in the reception.

We also have one more hobby. A pretty jobless one.

My mom's siblings have a habit of calling each other up atleast five times a day. Every single time, they talk for atleast a half hour. I don't know what they talk, as soon as the phone sings or rings or whatever, I'm away from there faster than roadrunner, their talks are intolerable. You see, my four uncles have their shops on the same road, and everyday is like a TV serial for them. But because, thankfully, TV9 is not in the business of relaying family affairs, its left to the humble abode of Idea. And since, they haven't yet woken up to the advanced concept of conference calls, they need to call up everyone and repeat it.

So this is the essential formula,

Let us consider there is one fresh gossip that sibling one has got to know.

Total no. of siblings =7

Let us assume one sibling has to tell this to atleast three siblings.

Also assuming, my mom is one of the first ones to know. So, call no.1
Now, she has to call another one and relay it. Call no.2
Then, in between she gets a call from another one who presumes she doesn't know about it. Call no.3
Now, she has to discuss about it with both her sisters. Call no.4 and 5
Then, one sibling offers an entire different story. Everyone go into a frenzy and the circle repeats, and the rest of us who are with the fateful sibling at home or park or movie theatre, wherever the hell this drama is going on, are eating/pulling their hair out in frustration.

Whenever Abhishek Bachchan says, "What an Idea, sirji", All I want to do is kick his nuts so hard that he skyrockets all Idea call rates to finance his nut-reconstruction surgery. I mean, what is the point of weird happy family offers, that's driving individual families insane.

Yes, I have a mental family, but as my mom puts it, "Poor K uncle, you know what happened Kee, it seems blah blah blah blah blah blah". All I can say is she articulated it well, but unfortunately Seinfeld was articulating things better and I got carried away.

Wait! I have another one. As those kids from the psycho Khichdi family say, "Bade log, Bade log!"