“Atithi Devo Bhava“- this means that guests are equivalent to Gods. We Indians really believe in this saying. This might not look that great if you are the host but on the other side, everything is fantabulous – delicious food, royal treatment and what not! In all, the hosts normally do everything to prove that they are the best hosts anyone could have.

A few days back we were expecting one of my foofajis (Father’s brother-in-law) to visit us. He showed up as expected but with some other relative. An extra guest is not a problem for my family members as they love having guests, but not me. I have an unconventional problem with unexpected guests which is – how should I address them? What now? You think that isn’t even a problem? Well, when you have a family of the size equal to the number of students at IIT, addressing them is indeed a problem. And what adds to the problem is my father’s belief that – A child should never address a person as uncle/aunt if one is even remotely related to him/her, which rules out the easiest solution to my dilemma.

Initially this was a pretty big problem for me because, half an hour would be spent making fun of me whenever I’d goof up.

• “OMG! He doesn’t even recognize his bua (father’s sister).” The facial expression on my bua’s face was as if I had lost my virginity to a goat. 
• “This is why I don’t like living in cities. Children aren’t even familiar with their relatives. I wish Abhishek was half as concious of his family as our Pappu, he even knows the number of buffaloes his mama (maternal uncle) has.” said Pappu’s proud mother who was my… wait a minute how was I related to her? Well only God knows!

I remember once we went to some relatives’ house and I saw an elderly lady there. I being a sincere lad greeted her with, “Namastey Dadiji (Grandmother)” and took her blessings. I called her Dadiji because of a simple law of relationships for relatives that my mother had taught me.
“On your father’s side every female with white hair is your Dadi and every man with white hair is your Dadaji (Grandfather) while on my side you’ll address them as Naniji and Nanaji respectively.”
I had learnt this rule by heart because for me this was the only survival tactic in the world of messed up relatives. However, that day as I completed the tricky task of greeting the hosts, everyone around me started laughing loudly. I was shocked. Did i say something wrong? I even checked my shorts zip, maybe they saw something cute down there (In my defense I would say that I was only five at that time, and at that age everything is cute!), but everything was fine. Then what was the problem? After the level of oxygen in their blood veins had increased considerably, that Dadi told me that she was actually my Bua. That was the first time I learnt that exceptions exist.

Later on I developed a defense mechanism to counter this problem. This solution is so effective that I’ve been successfully using it for over thirteen years and it has never disappointed me, except for once. The solution comprises of a few steps:

• Take a guess as to who that person could be. by taking help from these parameters – age, sex and marital status.
• Suppose you take a bet on Chachaji, to be on the safer side , guess two relatives, let the second one be Tauji (Father’s elder brother).
• You are all set now. Now take the initial part of both these relatives and add ‘ji’ in he end, for the sake of respect. 
• Now greet them with – “Namastey TauChji“. Say Namastey a bit louder than the latter and say the second word in such a way that they get confused between Chacha and Tau. This will give you the benefit of doubt and till the time the next person figures out what you said, you would be comfortably seated on the sofa eating delicious snacks. 

Just remember one thing, whatever you say, say it with full confidence.

Although I’ve solved this difficulty, another exists, that of being an unexpected guest. I am sure you all must have that one relative who is ever ready to take you to his relatives house, irrespective of your acquaintance with them. Even I had an opportunity to be the unexpected guest at some distant relative’s house. Once my brother Rahul took me to his Mami’s  house. In a way she was also my  Mami. You might be wondering how many relatives do I have? Trust me, even I don’t know.

When we reached our destination, Rahul’s mami opened the door.  She was very happy to see him but the moment she saw me, her happiness turned into surprise. However, we went inside and sat on the sofa. The next ten minutes were spent explaining the relation between me and Rahul and the history of my family to her. When I was finished explaining things, Rahul went to the washroom. After a while Rahul’s sister came running into the room excited to meet her brother. We all know how excited girls can get when they are about to meet their cousins. I was seated in a way that my back faced the door. When she came inside to hug her brother and saw me instead of Rahul, she froze and the exact words which came out of her mouth were, “Shit! You are not Rahul, sorry.”

How would you feel when you go to a place and are greeted with strange expressions like that of a person who couldn’t find the masala inside his maggi pack and instead of namastey you receive a sorry? Well, these aren’t the only “perks” of being an unexpected guest.

• If there is something important to discuss , they’ll change the topic as soon as they realize that you are present there.
• It seems you are in an alien territory as you don’t have any clue regarding any conversation.
• You do things which you would have normally avoided. Once I spent complete twenty minutes with a customer care representative who was trying to sell me diapers for children.
• Kids make the situation even worse. Since they don’t know you, they will shy away from you, but their parents will forcefully make you their ‘friend’ and needless to say you will then have to surrender yourself to the whims of these devils.
• You have to fake a smile the whole time as if it is your felicitation ceremony.

All in all, being an unexpected guest is both hilarious and absurd thing and depends a lot on how you take it. In the situations mentioned above you could have acted differently viz hugged Rahul’s sister with equal excitement- this would have blown off her mind (Damn! I couldn’t think of this at that time), played ‘guess who’ with his mami or you could have shown interest in their talks. I am pretty sure this would make you an adorable and well mannered guy  who is everyone’s favorite, but I never do these sort of things because of a simple reason – I don’t feel like doing it. I already have a lot of relatives to please, adding more would do me no good.

All these experiences have led to a very peculiar thing . People get nightmares like falling off a cliff, getting eaten by monsters etc., but not me. But my worst nightmare, has now become, a world full of relatives!