Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi...

 

When someone gets married and forms new relations, the most obvious thing to do would be to use new names to address the members of the new family. But can anyone address the mother-in-law as “saas” and the father-in-law as “sasur”? That sounds so disrespectful, you would say, isn’t it? And I would agree as well. After all, we have relegated all the in-law words to the back benches of our vocabulary. “Saala” and “Saali” are now official expletives that have fallen well below the redemption point. “Saas” comes with the baggage of being the conniving evil in any family. And poor “sasur” often gets dragged into routine conversations as a half-expletive. So, you see, despite all the pretence of treating the in-laws as their own, the Indian society secretly indulges an alternate mindset that stokes the exact opposite viewpoint.

So, what do people do instead? Society prescribes that one must address the in-laws in the same way as they address their own family. This is never easy for anyone to implement. So, how do urban Indians arm-twist their way out of the situation? Simple. They put all the synonyms that they had learnt in grade two to good use. For example, if they call their own parents “ma” and “baba”, the parents-in-law can be “mom” and “dad”. This is a perfectly acceptable solution and I have seen this system work well in many families. Some people do address their in-laws by the same name as their parents. If their parents are “mummy” and “daddy”, so will be the parents-in-law. Yet, when they mouth the word “mummy” they actually mean “wife’s mummy” or “husband’s mummy”. “Spouse apostrophe s” remains silent! But everybody can sense that. Even the saas, kyunki saas bhi…

Perhaps we can destigmatize the words- saas, sasur, saala and saali and start to use them to address the in-laws? This would serve two purposes, firstly, the words would regain respectful places in our vocabulary and secondly, nobody would have to start a marriage under the pressure of unrealistic expectations. Can we accept that the in-laws are not a replacement of one’s family but an addition, a welcome addition?

I think it is high time that we Indians let go of our timeless love for hypocrisy. If you are single you can try this out in the future. (And let me know if it works!) For some of us, the ship has already sailed. So, what do we do? Simple. We will pass the burden of what we couldn’t do to our children. Winks!