Marrying in to a Bengali family
I love my wife, more than anything else in the world. I also love love love her family. It's funny when you talk to south Asians, you'll say "my cousin" or "my uncle" and they'll ask you to be more specific, because "father's sister" is a very different word from "mother's brother's wife", and that starts to make more sense.
Anyways, we got this cockatiel last year, and we can't travel with it, so she was talking to her Mashimoni (mother's elder sister) about whether anyone could take it or not. Mashimoni ("moni" for short) was non-committal, and clearly didn't want a bird. I had talked to Moni's husband, and he loved this idea, that we would leave the bird with her and then act like she had always had it. "What are you talking about, Moni? That's your bird!?"
Moni's husband ("Dadi", for those paying attention to Bengali words) had an even better idea: he knows I'm good with photo editing software, so he wanted to edit in the bird to old pictures of him and Moni. This we did with a vengeance. "What do you mean, you were at the Taj Mahal? That's a picture of you and your bird, Moni! There's no Taj Mahal there, just a bird!" We had some fun.
Anyways, I just wanted to salute the south asian family's spirit, and recognize the things it has brought to the US, including my wonderful wife.
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