Sid and Nani bond over the IPL

"Reemzy, he's just J, I tell you'!", says my triumphant grandmother.  I grinned at her and the alarmed looking lump next to her, which was Sid hunched over the laptop, trying not to look alarmed.  Sudden yells of, "He's just J" have become common at my house over the last two weeks, or basically ever since my 81 year old nani ("You know they sometimes cut off a few years in the South, god knows whether my mother did.  I may just be 84 for all you know") has come to visit me.  "J" being her trendy abbreviated version of "jealous" of course!  And why is Sid 'J' you might ask.  It's fairly simple, IPL fever has gripped my home over the last few weeks and Sid is delighted with the latest fan to enter.  Boxing, wrestling and cricket are some of my nani's favourite sports to watch, the former two bordering on rather bloodthirsty choices for someone her age perhaps, but favourites they are nonetheless.  Her pet teams don't really follow any set pattern, but she generally tends to side with whichever team Siddharth isn't supporting.  And those conveniently also coincide with the teams from the places she has lived in - Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and not sure why, but Kolkata.  Anyhow, Sid and she settle on to the couch every evening and yell lustily for their respective teams, playfully teasing each other along the way.  Just before the match begins, Sid will tootle over to nani and ask her "Come nani, do you want to see your team lose today? The match is about to start".  She may be a bit hard of hearing, but perhaps by instinct or what my mother prefers to think of as 'selective hearing', her sharp retort comes, "Look at the cheek! We'll see who's team loses. First tell me who's the captain of each playing team today".  Siddharth will dutifully reply.  The answer is pondered over for a second and then he is asked, "Which team are you supporting"? Once that is established, she will always choose the other team.  "Just to keep it interesting", she explains to me when I ask her about her rather terrible choice of teams like Kolkata!

They've both had their fair share of wins and losses and the only time I join them is when Bangalore is playing, the only team I am whole heartedly loyal to regardless of their abysmal performance in the first IPL.  My brother-in-law, Ritesh, works with UB and had got Siddharth a Royal Challengers T-shirt in the first season.  Sid was a bit horrified at the time and wore it sparingly, taking care to not be seen in public with it.  The one time he did venture out in it to get something from the car he swore a group of girls burst out laughing at him, a blow to the ego for any man!  Of course with Bangalore doing drastically better than their horrific first season run, the T-shirt is worn more frequently now - a true fair weather fan he is!  He claims to not like the Bangalore team, but the other day as Nani and I cheered lustily for the team, I found him nipping out of the room.  I went to find him a few minutes later hastily pulling something over his head.  He looked a bit comical in shorts and what seemed to be a terribly tight white vest, which seemed to have shrunk an inch above his belly button.  "What in the world are you doing?". I asked in shock.  "I'm wearing my Royal Challengers T-shirt, but what the hell has happened to my vest? You must have shrunk it in the washing machine woman"! I walked over to him and tugged at the vest, "If you're referring to yourself as 'woman' since you do the laundry that's fine! You quite look the part since you're wearing my ganji, you dumbass!".  As he stared down in shock he started tugging it off, "Why is this with me? Get it off! I'm wasting time, I need to get back to the match!". Extracting himself, he crammed on the Royal Challenger's t-shirt and ran back to the television yelling, "Yayyy Nani, our team is winning"!  Nani looked at him in surprise, "Look at the cheek! You were never supporting Bangalore. Reemzy, look at this!".

And so it carries on.  Siddharth trying to fool Nani into believing that a replay of a wicket being taken is actually a new wicket being taken.  Nani will fall for it for a minute, alarm spreading across her face.  But as soon as she realizes what he's up to she'll mock scold him, "Hey! I'm not falling for that. I can see you know"! Two seconds later she will try the same trick on him! Many an evening I retire to bed and can hear loud whoops of joy from Siddharth or sudden outbursts from Nani, "Gooooo Deccan." or "Ah ha ha Siddarth, sour grapes sour grapes"! A little later Sid will come to bed grinning, "Nani's side won today.  She seems to be on a winning streak, I'll have to think of a way of getting her to support the losing team.  Just watch what I do tomorrow, heeehahahahaha"! I jabbed at him, "You do realize you're scheming against my grandmother, someone 50 years older than you!".  "Oh please, she loves it, just watch us tomorrow".  And he's right.  As I watch them yelling at the TV screen in the evening, making fun of each other and "scheming", I can see that my nani is thoroughly enjoying her time with her grandson-in-law!