Guest Post by N

A guest post!!! by N, my first and most favourite sister-in-law. Read on what's she got to say. Part 2 of the same will be up, which will be my version of the same story.

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Its been hell loong since I actually wrote anything; even a grocery list. So this blog post better be a good one from me. After all my Purnima now has a reputation to take care of.

Speaking of which, Purni (that's what I call her) and myself have known each other for God knows how long. The fact that she is related to my aunt, who is also her aunt, is the main reason. Well, doesn't my aunt and her aunt mean we might be cuz? Err.. no. Its like this, her aunt in the way of her mom's sister and my aunt being my uncle's wife... aah... now you get it!

Anyways, she's a year younger to me but then, that was never an issue. As long as I remember, my first impression of her was that of a girl who spoke her mind, regardless of who it was. I loved it and her; as it was something I would never even have courage of doing. She was, let us say, a "pataka". She was a little sis I never had, atleast until I had one.  She was the "city girl" in our chota sa village. When we wore salwar, oiled our hair and wore bindis, she would be in her pretty frocks/jeans with her wild curly hair loose. She was a dream we girls wanted to live. I don't think she would actually dream about oiling her hair like me. (blech!)

Zipping into the next 10-15 years, we grew up... meeting occassionally when she would come down during the school holidays to her aunt's house and I too would be there sometimes. Playing was out of question at that time. We just used to sit out and look at our brothers playing Lagori, Cricket and yell for tiniest of "cheatings".. sigh.. those were the days... 

I would like to tell you all my relation with her, she is now my sister in law (legally), but I care for her more... We fight, snicker, tease, bitch about our weight do all that stuff sisters do. We share clothes (unfortunately my waist is rather too big to fit into her clothes), and we both loooove books, hit restaurants like there is no tomorrow, and shop, shop, shop...In short, we are always there for each other (sniff..sniff). 


Purni has been a friend first and sister-in-law next. In fact, other than the mandatory crossover from her calling me by name to calling me "vanni" (bhabhi), nothing has changed between us. We drive her brother (and my husband, who happens to be the same person - V) crazy. The best proof of it would be when V tells us, "You girls are supposed to fight, not backing each other!" We get that from him each time that he is cornered or bullied by us. Or when he pulls our legs. Yeah, we do that a lot! Since I am not to, I let her do the pinching, hitting and punching parts.

We do all kinds of stuff teenagers would. Who cares how old you are? We are still kids :P (we have our own kid(s) now), but still... 

Now, our talks revolve around kids, cooking, books and we still bitch about our weight. I eye her non existence waist and she wants my thin matchstick legs.

How Purni went from being an occassional city friend to a full time sis in law? That's another story. 

I have to say, honestly, I never remember speaking to, far less even look at Purni's brother... When I asked him about it, he says he was busy with his college life. Later I found out he was too shy to speak to girls :P

The very first time I remember seeing her brother was at my uncle's place (duh!)  when I in my 2nd yr degree. A tall, rather skinny guy with French beard who was waaaaaaaaaaaay too shy for his age. After exchanging "Hellos", we were back to our own work. He was then working in Bangalore, and would come down to my uncle's place often during the weekends. I started seeing more of V and my impression of him never wavered. He was definetly the quiet type. We talked and I felt sad for him as I knew he missed his mom and sis way too much. He was actually away from them for the first time, and that too in a whole new state, where he did not even know the local language.

We exchanged email id's and kept in touch. In my final year, V popped up the million dollar question. Honestly, I was not expecting it so suddenly but I was not shocked either. I guess, somewhere in my mind I always knew this would have been the next step. Well, now that it was asked, I had to answer right?  I took my time and finally, I did tell him what I thought. 

For those who don't know me, we got married a year later - after he completed his MS and landed a job in Sg. Its now been 6 year plus and with 2 amazingly wonderful daughters, I wouldn't ask for anything more!