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You are married; you want to stay macho well into it, the way you were as friends and family know you all those years. But how? The writer gives you a dozen tips to keep your tough image intact.

1) To begin a day on a fine note, tell her what you want for breakfast: “I like to have poori, masala, and if it doesn’t bother you…and er…ehm…I want a bit of white chutney too. What do you say?” She will reply after serious thinking: “I know. It is on the tip of my mouth. Yeah, I got it, the answer is Arul Jyothi. Let us go.” Go man, go. Take her to Arul Jyothi hotel at the earliest. Get a shawarma too. Don’t worry, you’re immuned. You’re married.

2) While at office, your wife may call anytime to demand you to get her the most unromantically-named things in the world: “Hey, one more time you forget to buy puzhukkalari, chena, chembu, savaala, ulli, kariveppila, on your way home, the kitchen is closed, understand?” Listen calmly and stoically until she ends her tirade and hangs up. Begin now. “No, dear. Let’s have pizza tonight. I will buy macaroni from Spencers. Oh, you want Chicken nuggets from KFC? Why don’t we try Chicking for a change, honey? Fine, you may go and buy it. Don’t always call me to get my permission. You can go and buy whatever you want. Ok, dear, bye…” Now you disconnect the long disconnected phone again.

3) Tell your mother to take rest for a day. Dash to your room and announce that one of your relatives has just said that your wife cannot prepare chappathy and curry in two hours – a feat which can be accomplished only by certain talented woman. Warning: This may work only once in a lifetime. So use it only at the most crucial moment when your mother is so ill.        .

4) You are chatting with your guests in the drawing room and you want them served with tea. To begin with, shout at the kitchen for the drink, then chase the shout before it reaches the kitchen and before it falls on Her ears, now hitch your lungi and tie it tightly around your waist, meekly take the order from your own shout which now arrives and prepare the tea all by yourself. Request your wife to serve the concoction for good time’s sake and dash back to your seat at least three minutes before the tea hits the drawing room. “Nice tea…” holding your heaving chest under control, congratulate your wife in the presence of the guests.

5)    This is very important. Don’t ask me the reason. Nobody knows. Never let your friends catch you at a stitching centre while you’re there to collect your wife’s blouse or underskirt. I don’t know what is so demeaning in those cloth pieces, but no blouse or underskirt please. You can’t blame those brats chuckling; they’ve only seen you shopping for latest gizmos and movie tickets, never for something like this: bharyede blousum pavadem thaipikkan…

6) While washing her clothes always remember to be in your best outfits – branded shirts, branded jeans (If possible a safari suit), lustrous shoes, a topline leather belt, Rayban shades, Tissot wrist watch etc(For god’s sake, don’t use that lungi-bunyan combo, your domestic uniform which announces you’re at duty). Use mp3 player, or at least some wires that run out of your ears and disappear as they go down. With all these trappings you don’t have to worry even if your relatives catch you unawares. They may think that this washing is a one-off incident in your life. Without overdoing it, mutter at frequent intervals like those cuckoo alarm clocks, these words: “Poor girl. She is not well today. And I have no other way.” Your image will not suffer much. (Again. Try to avoid blouse and underskirt from the clothesline)

7) While walking through the street, kid in hand, never let your wife get past you. Run, run, run…faster, faster, faster…overtake, overtake, overtake… Studies have proved that the most embarrassing visual ever reported in visual media is that of a husband, carrying kid in one arm and all the big shoppers on the other following a lady who has nothing else to carry but her pride. You know to whom you would soon be running into – your old friends who are still bachelors. Catastrophe! I must warn you.

8) When your uncle asks you in a family meeting: so what is your opinion, say courageously you need a break for a leak. Beat a hasty retreat into your bedroom where your opinion is lying on the bed in a nightie. Get back to the meeting quickly and announce boldly: “Well I have a strong opinion on this. I say…” Good. What a man you are saabji!

9) Men commit mistakes. Admit them boldly, firmly, rigidly. You must be so rigid that she must use all her superhuman strength to tear you away from her feet: “Saaramilla chetta, I forgive, eneekku. I’ll forget it if you promise me you won’t repeat. Get up now.” You should never obey her on that or change your position until you get an assurance from her that she has forgiven. She must know what manliness is!

10) Don’t vacillate before excessive sentimentality. You have seen enough tears like this; you are not going to be softer anymore. So my dear friends, let tears pour down once again from your eyes but you are not going to scream aloud this time before your wife. Let her apply brute force. But, beyond a weep or a whimper, no other voice of pain will escape your bedroom today. Schmaltzy. Yuck!

11) Never quarrel with your wife and storm out of your bedroom with your pillow announcing that you’re spending the rest of the night in the next room, dark, infested with cockroaches. Your daughter will not sleep, until she witnesses the ceremonial retreat of a pillow, and her father in an undignified haste closely followed by a couple of highly irritated roaches. (This I admit has something personal in it).

12)  Say boldly looking into her eyes, mustering all courage: “Shut up! I don’t like it. I object to this. Listen, you are not going anywhere. I will not allow. I am the man of the house, you get that! What do you think I am! A fool!” And stop playing this high-octane game with your daughter before your wife arrives from office.

Fine…you have now 15 tips with you. Let me ask you a question to check whether you have learned them properly. Listen carefully.

Question: It is 2am early morning. You wake up and now want to work on your project. You know only a hot tea can keep your eyes open at the wee hours, but your wife is in deep sleep. So these are the conditions- you need a tea, there is a kitchen, milk, tea dust and water, there is a sleeping wife, it is only two O’ clock. What will you do?

Answer: What difference man? Get to the kitchen and make it. You do the same thing you do even if it is 10 in the morning or 5 in the afternoon. The only difference now is you don’t have to make one for her now as it is only 2am. Bullshit!

(image credits: inmagine)

About Manu Remakant

Manu has written 298 stories in Rum, Road & Ravings. You can read all posts by Manu here.