Do you know why they are called In-laws? Coz they think they are THE Law!

I got to tell you this…those of you who are married are probably aware. If your in-laws are coming home to stay with you for a day or two, fake a business trip and stay in a hotel. Or better still, fake an accident and get admitted in ICU.

I was at the Central Railway station at 6.00 a.m. on a Sunday for a train that would arrive at 7 a.m. from Kannur (Rekha`s native). My wife had kept the alarm at 4.30 a.m. and woken me up, and peacefully gone back to sleep. I had tried to protest, but her stare mellowed me down.

The previous night, Rekha had said: “Make sure my parents don`t have to wait. They don`t know our address, they don`t remember phone numbers and they don`t know Tamil.”

That had given me a ray of hope. I could lose them in the crowd, and come back home. Rekha might scold me for a day or two, but then forget. And by the time her parents find our house in Chennai, we would have had two kids…and anyways at that point of time we would need her parents to baby-sit our kids. But I was scared. So I went straight to the station, and waited for the train that was already one hour late.

I saw the twosome get down at the station. Quite a sight they were. I wanted to hide behind a porter and see their reaction on not seeing me. They were pretty calm. Guess they had faith in their daughter`s ability to get me out of bed.

They had three suitcases and a cardboard box kept in place by a red nylon rope. I asked my father-in-law, “So, we take a porter huh?”

“Arre, why do we need a porter? We can carry this,” he said even as he picked up two small suitcases and started walking. I looked around and even her mother had started walking swinging her arms like a windmill.

I was left to pick up the two heavy pieces of luggage. Mind you, the cardboard box weighed 25+ Kgs and I am still nursing a bruise on my shoulder. Later I would know that the box had 100+ bananas. Gosh, these in-laws!

On reaching my house, I kept down the cardboard box and rang the bell.

An excited Rekha opened the door. “So how was the journey,” she asked her father.

“Everything was good, except for these heavy suitcases,” the old man blurted out. You should have seen the look Rekha gave me. My knees gave way.

Having just smiled for three hours, my face muscles were tired. I rushed to the washroom and relaxed a bit. But that was short-lived. Once inside our bedroom, Rekha reprimanded me for not hiring a porter so that her father could swing his arms and walk freely in Chennai air.