Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The Defence of the Housewife

"Enough!" I heard her scream in desperate haste,
"I shall not let you lay the whole house to waste!
You have dismembered my dryer and the washer too,
My kitchen floor now resembles a railway loo;
You have used up entirely my last bit of patience,
And the penultimate drop of my coconut oil rations.
In addition your tone seeks to disparage
The experience I have, a woman twice your age!
Not content with ruining my kitchen plugpoints you
Dare to attempt those of other rooms too?"

"Thus far and no farther shall you venture my boy,
My home is not for Godrej servicemen to destroy!"

This poem was written in commemoration of my mother's heroic attempts to save our home in Chennai from the entirely destructive hands of the Godrej serviceman who came to repair our washing-machine. Our place survived, with a somewhat battle-scarred electrical wiring, but I'm afraid the washing machine didn't make it. We have a Haier one now.