The Unusual Family Members

What is the emotion that you go through when you think of a refrigerator? The question came out of the blue from my boss while we were discussing the idea of a promotional campaign. Though a simple question, it did stir a lot of emotions within me. For some reason, I could not answer the question and just sat there remembering what a refrigerator actually meant in my life. In fact, any middle-class kid with both parents working would understand how important such appliances were in our lives. They become our friends and pals. They are at times disciplinarians, entertainers or even nurturers. They were an integral part of our families, the unusual family members.

As a kid, I and my sister spent several days in the company of nothing but these appliances and ourselves. Our parents were working and striving hard to fulfil their responsibilities not only towards us but also to the family in our native village in Kerala. However, as a kid, I never understood why they worked so hard and would at times very wrongly assume that they loved their jobs more than their children. It would take me a decade and a half to actually understand why they did what they did.

Generally, during the academic season, we never used to feel much loneliness. But summer vacations were a dread. We weren't allowed to play all day like other kids and were confined to our homes from morning till evening. The reason was that these kids had some elder family members at their homes to ensure they were eating and resting on time and we were by ourselves. Whenever we argued about this, we would be countered with a barrage of possibly horrific scenarios that we may go through if we went out of the home and were playing without adult supervision. To a great extent, these scenarios did scare me and I gave into their decision with helpless submission.

Let me introduce and explain to you the impact that three gadgets/appliances had on my life. These machines were basically coping mechanisms for my parents and us siblings to ensure we lived a normal, safe and sane family life.

The Disciplinarian

It was extremely important for my parents to ensure that we were not up to some mischief when they were not around. The lack of an adult member at home always had them on fire, constantly worried about me and my sister.

One day there was a miracle at my home. My parents finally got a solution to their problem. This solution was called THE TELEPHONE. The landline phones were coming into the homes of the common folk and for us kids, this was a great thing as we had only seen these gadgets in the movies. But it did not take much time for us to replace the novelty with absolute loathing towards this device. My parents used the phone as their coping mechanism for constant adult supervision. There would be scheduled calls from both of them at an interval of 2 hours to check on us and ensure we were monitored constantly.

There were in fact a few scenarios that my parents had created with the help of this disciplinarian to accurately deduce what we were up to.

Scenario #1: The phone is picked up immediately on the first or second ring. This meant that we were watching TV and were not doing our homework or studying.

Scenario #2: The phone was picked up after the 4th or 5th ring. This meant we were not in the living room and were either enjoying a siesta or were in our respective rooms playing a video game or reading a novel or worse we went out of the house without permission.

Scenario #3: The phone was engaged. This was the worst and the gravity of the situation increased in the proportion to the number of times that they tried reaching on phone and found it to be engaged. If they got through on the second or third attempt it meant either of us was chit-chatting with our friends. If the number of attempts from my parents exceeded that it would be concluded that I am in an affair and am willing away my time chatting with some girl. Somehow, my parents were always sure that the culprit in this scenario would be me and only me.

Thinking back on all the hatred I had harboured for the disciplinarian I do miss the land phone. Mobile phones, though made to increase our connectivity with the world, have now made us less connected than ever.

The Entertainer

This device was a boon to me and my sis (especially me) and a bane from the point of view of my parents. The TELEVISION was at one point in time my saviour from the loneliness that I faced during summer vacations. My sister was somehow always busy with some or the other girly games that could be confined to the bedroom. The games I loved to play were predominantly outdoors and playing them indoors ran a risk of damaging some stuff inside resulting in not-so-pleasant repercussions from my parents. Hence I was mostly found on the couch with the remote control and a packet of munchies next to me.

My parents loathed this and would forever reprimand me for watching too much TV. My dad would call it the idiot box and infer that anyone watching it for long is turned into an idiot. However, this inference stood no ground when he would watch news bulletins of some foreign land with rapt attention ignoring all our talks and actions during that time. The constant instruction to counter my TV binge-watching was to go and study. Especially during school days, switching on the TV before either of my parents came home was a cardinal sin.

What they told us was that we need to study and complete our homework, but actually, it was the fear of having no control over what we would be watching on TV. Those days explicit content was seldom shown on TV as compared to the current scenario. However, the fear that one's children will watch such content unknowingly was higher than today. Irony or hypocrisy... You decide!!

Coming back to the entertainer. With all its woes and issues, TV was the best entertainer for us lonely kids. I remember several summer afternoons that I spent watching some hilarious movies on TV (none of them was comedy movies... just some weird action flicks from wannabe actors). I would keep laughing at some scenes long after the movie was over. My sister to date never understood why I would watch such movies in the first place.

The Nurturer

This is the section which made me write this blog in the first place. The refrigerator. This was the most important aspect of life's daily lives. The slight humming sound of the refrigerator that we heard when we entered the house was an unfair assurance that we would not remain famished.

Mom and Dad used to take special care to see to it that nothing in the fridge remains for more than a day. This was a top-priority appliance at home, a kind of lifeline. I remember once the TV and fridge had broken down simultaneously. They went to great lengths to repair the fridge and the TV was repaired only when Dad was bored on a particular Sunday, 2 weeks later.

The fridge for me was an extension of my Mom. Always caring and nurturing. Even today I have this blind faith that I can never go hungry when Mom is around. This was the exact kind of nurture that the fridge provided us. Food is one of the mediums through which kids experience their mother's unconditional love and the fridge ensured that this love remained unspoiled for us to relish and enjoy.

We often don't give value to these things in life and in fact for a good portion of my life, I have never thought about such things. So does that mean we hold on to that refrigerator or TV and give it more important than family members? Of course not, my attachment was never to the products but just the functionality of these products. I still don't have the same refrigerator or the same TV. Hell, I don't even have a land phone in my house anymore. But the way these products functioned affected my life to a great extent.

It has taught me to value the small insignificant-looking things in life that we so greatly ignore, quoting it to be materialism.