Scho Schweet!

Magy and I are living with an incredibly warm and sharp older woman named Ramaji. She is a retired Professor of English (although confusingly she still teaches four classes, so I don’t really get that) and her husband passed away some time ago. She plays the sitar and is an infinite source of Hindu mythology. Her son, Tarun, also lives with her. By day, he’s the head of Emergency Medicine at the large government hospital here, and at night he works on a medical computer software program he’s developing. So needless to say, much of what we see of him is in passing. But he’s heart-warmingly goofy and if you can manage to catch him in one spot for an extended period of time he makes for some great conversation. That is how I know, for example, that he’s self-professedly still “emotionally dependent” on his mother. He also has a wife and kids who live in Toronto which is another confusing thing that I don’t get, but because of this (or at least I’m assuming it’s because of this) the dining room table has plastic Niagara Falls placemats on top of the beautiful block print (a Jaipur specialty) tablecloth. Vrinda is Ramaji’s daughter and although she lives a few km away from home, she comes over every afternoon to be with her mother. She is also a Professor of English and she is also heart-warmingly goofy. She has a great repertoire of phrases, like calling the car that parked harhazardly next to hers a “stupid creepy crawler.” She especially likes to moosh either sides of her cheeks with her hands, widen her eyes, and exclaim “Scho schweet!” at things that aren’t that incredible (Oh, you’re writing a letter home? Scho schweet!).

            Rounding out the household is a series of servants, and this has admittedly been a little weird to get used to. Baiji is a grizzly old woman with gray hair and rotten teeth. She lives with the family and has for 30 plus years. She doesn’t speak English but she has a great instinct for physical comedy and laughs at our attempts to speak in Hindi with her. When Ramaji is busy while Magy and I are eating a meal, she stands over the table making sure that we eat enough, forcing us to take more papaya or whatever even after we say no. Maname (not sure on the spelling) is the new sassy young cook who Baiji is training. She’s young, married, and with child.