Monday, July 6, 2009

The five best things

about the spouse, also known as the Sometimes Resident Engineer (the famous SRE ).
The Maid in Malaysia has given me this challenging task, so challenging that the teenage son was most amused, and the spouse himself gave me some wonderful sins of omission as his good points. According to him, he is a great spouse because he no longer smokes or drinks, and has no girlfriends, and hands over his entire pay package to me. (He doesn't, it goes to the bank, and I only make the routine withdrawals, and execute the investments as per his guidelines, but this is why he thinks he's a good spouse.)

According to me, he is an amazing husband because:
a) he keeps me mentally alert at all times!
By which I mean I have to constantly balance two very strangely dissonant concepts in my mind: one of him as an extremely intelligent, competent and capable person, and the other of him as totally inept, challenged by many many simple things like light switches and taps.
He almost put orange squash in the deepam he lights each morning as he couldn't follow my directions to the new oil bottle in the kitchen cupboard!

b) He makes me feel indispensable, perhaps because he is too lazy to do anything for himself.

I have to be the navigator if we are going out without the driver, even if it's a brand new city that I hardly know! In Kolkata, he states with great pride, he can reach the following locations from our house, without help- his office, his club, Forum Mall, South City Mall, our son's college, the airport, and Howrah Railway station.( He inevitably gets confused on the way back via Vidyasagar Setu, but then I do too, sometimes.)

I have also been thoroughly demoralised by his constant refrain of "I don't know where I am" when we were returning from a concert.(The driver had left us there, and I did know the way home!)

I am also planning to retire from 'nagivation', since the time we were going to his cousin's place, following the exact same route we were told, only to be intercepted by a traffic cop for trying to enter a one-way street! We did sweet talk our way our of that, but the man was most upset with me!

I am now training him to take his medicines himself. He has been known to have them served nicely to him with his breakfast, and then marching off to work without ingesting them. Gah.


c) He is a warm-hearted person, as welcoming to the kids' friends as to our own. My parents have been with us for about four years now, off and on, and he has never ever made me feel that it is at all a big deal for him.
He will always have a kind word for everyone, whether it is our ancient dhobi or the maid or the car cleaner, or any random soul he happens to interact with.

d) The man does not gossip, and doesn't encourage gossip either.
This can get frustrating sometimes when I'm dying to bitch about someone, but I do appreciate this as A Good Quality.

e) He is great fun to be with, even though he can drive you mad by singing mismatched words and tunes, or by acting totally deaf when he feels like it. He speaks well, and is original and often thought provoking.

I guess I lucked out!

Edited to add: I was supposed to write a list of the five best things the husband has done for me
specifically so I've rather cheekily told MiM that
1) he married me, and
2-5) Gave me four mostly nice/great kids.

As a bonus, let me tell you that he has given me bedpans when required, and has ordered in when I'm not up to cooking, and has never interfered with my sense of autonomy.

I hereby tag
Wordjunkie
Nitya
Nino's Mom
Kiran
Kbpm
Choxbox
Era

33 comments:

maidinmalaysia said...

nonono. the tag is five best things the husband has done for you....re-work on certain points...

well*i asked niecely*

and the SRE sounds like great fun!!

OrangeJammies said...

This should so be a tag! Such fun! He's very lucky to have you too, Dipali.

Poppins said...

Dipali: Your tag is simply the best, SRE is a hoot!

starry eyed said...

rotfl at "has no girlfriends"!

beautifully done! SRE wins hands down. And you, for the excellent management:) Lucky both of you.

dipali said...

@maidin malaysia: That's easy peasy!
1) he married me.
2-5) gave me four mostly nice kids:)
@OJ: Thanks! I should ask him to do it too, na!
@poppins: Thank you:)
@starry eyed: Thanks! I think he knows what's good for him, hence the no girlfriends:)

wordjunkie said...

LOL! Now SRE should do the tag too ;)

Era said...

lol, singing mismatched words and tunes sounds just like my Hubby. Great list. Thanks for the tag. Things have been hectic lately and I haven't been able to post regularly. This will help me get back into the swing of things :)

Anonymous said...

The SRE sounds wonderful. The no smoking/no drinking wins hands down.

You guys sound perfect for each other

PS:hey do you have 4 kids as well?
I didnt know that. I thought you had 2 sons..

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

Gosh now I have to get over all my irritations and find nice things to say. :(

Unknown said...

Ditto and ditto...these mens. They exasperate us at times but we still love them. The SRE is a very nice man, Dips.

Ron said...

Why can't men EVER find anything? Why why why? And why do they ALL think that coming home straight after work and having no girlfriends makes them the best husbands ever!? Gah!!

bird's eye view said...

Dipali - Loves point A. Am married to an electronic engineer who needs me to switch on a heater, so i know where you're coming from. I thought the SRE was great fun when we met.

dipali said...

@wordjunkie: He didn't like the idea:(
@era: Yes, I'm looking forward to your post:)
@asaan: yes, two girls and two boys.
Check this out: http://dipalitaneja.blogspot.com/2009/03/not-even-origami-camel.html
@kbpm: It's not an easy tag:)
@kiran: That he is! It's easier to love them once you accept that they march to a different drummer:)
@ron: Because they are men?
Hey, why don't you do this tag, Ron?
Please, pretty please.
@bird's eye view: They are simply amazing, these newfangled engineer types! My Chacha, who was my engineer template, has always been so hands on, so it was quite a shock discovering this man's true nature!
He is great fun! So is yours- I remember him each time I hear Desi girl:)

Unknown said...

Oh what a tag . I love it ! Oh what a lovey dovey pair !Oh I cant wait for the SRE to do the tag !

Seriously speaking - SRE has the kindest eyes I have seen .

Choxbox said...

LOL!

ra said...

what a lovely tag and post, hope the SRE's seeing all these comments!

Sue said...

The SRE is a dude. I totally think you lucked out, despite the squash in the deepam! (These mens...)

dipali said...

@eve's lungs: I seriously don't see him doing this! Besides being kind, he can be very funny:)
@chox: Have you redone your tag, young lady?
@ra:Thank you!
@Sue: You bet I did. And we fortunately saved the deepam from the squash:)

mandira said...

yup, i guess u lucked out.... but he lucked out too!!

the mismatched lyrics thingy that u mentioned? my mom does that too...n it annoys me like anything..she mostly doesnt know the lyrics so she just makes them us as she goes along!! i keep correcting her and she says i take the fun out of her singing!!
i liked points 2-5 in the edited to add section!:D

dipali said...

@mandira: I guess we both did!
I guess we should encourage all singers and not curtail their joy in singing with our nit-picking!
My kids (point 4 particularly,) are also quite discouraging. Gah)

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

dipali, we are not real engineers. its not his fault, its the education. even now the situation is, in my opinion, the same (or worse)!!

Nino's Mum said...

hahaha :) dipali, that made me smile so much!

Thank you for tagging me!

could you please send me your email id: I've something to say.

much love.

Mampi said...

Beautiful post Dipali.
Two reasons for that, no three...
one, your pen does wonders when you write about him-whether its funny or not.
two, I was planning to write something about my own resident cop when i read this post of yours.
three, I could guess what a genuine human being he is from the one telephonic conversation I have had with him.

Unmana said...

I want to do this too!

nitya said...

I am working on this tag, really. So far I have got to Point A. But I am persevering. :))

Anonymous said...

Tag accomplished.

Ron said...

Done :)

Itchingtowrite said...

http://itchingtowriteblogs.blogspot.com/2009/07/magik-number-seven.html tagged

Mona said...

aw, too cute!

Choxbox said...

and where are you?

mythri n said...

Got a link to ur blog through Lavanya's. Checking out the archives now!!

the mad momma said...

how come i never get tagged to do interesting stuff? are you saying my poor husband has no good qualities ? :D

mummyjaan said...

How sweet, Dipali. Read this earlier when you wrote it but was in much of a hurry, but I had to come back and comment.