<b>Kishore Singh:</b> 'We' are not amused

Every once in a few months, my wife dons her royal avatar, usually at clan gatherings that resemble a feudal durbar. For those of us with diluted nobility in our veins, a pecking order in which you can't reach for toast on the breakfast table outside your turn without inviting censure, is an exquisite form of medieval torture. There are grande dames who can be seen but not spoken to; severely arthritic uncles with fiercely curling moustaches who need to be pickled in alcohol from the start of the day till it's time to retire them to bed; and regiments of cousins and aunts who drip acid for every misstep you're sure to take, having aspired to cosmopolitanism over tradition.

"This time," my wife gathers us around with a flurry of instructions, "we do not wish to be embarrassed." The generic "we" is not a stand-in for the family, but an assumption that she is at the centre of our dynastic universe. "We don't have anything to wear," she adds testily, though this time the implication is that her spouse and heirs do not abide by a time-tested code of apparel. "We don't know what to do," she passes her hand wearily over her brow. She's smarting because an aunt surmised before a room full of peers that my choice of clothes indicated I was of "some lower order".

Appropriate dressing is, of course, a misnomer. To appear casual, I must dress formally. My wife has arranged riding breeches for my son and I, even though the last time I sat on a horse was during my college years. My son knows what a horse looks like because he's seen pictures. Yet, we must make like jockeys because everyone else in the extended family does. It is oddly disorienting.

My daughter won't conform, a rebellious streak she's inherited from her mother, though my wife would prefer some compliance right now. She works "in an office" (strike one), wearing Western clothes (strike two), has friends who are boys (not boyfriends, but it's still strike three), goes partying at night (strike four), wearing cocktail dresses (strike five). Before the night is out, I have been summoned by more relatives than I can vouch for, reciting bardic tales about daughters whose valour changed the course of Rajput history. "Because they didn't wear dresses?" I am moved to ask. My wife tells me, later that night, that she was upbraided by an aged relative for my insensitivity to community culture. "But," giggled my wife, " I had to tend to her granddaughter, who was as drunk as a skunk in the next room." She's dispensed with the royal "we" - at least between us.

We - my wife and I - decide to invite some friends and a few colleagues for dinner to lighten the stifling atmosphere. The community hangs together, disapproving of the "common" herd. "These people are strange," an in-law tells me. Office colleagues gossip about office stuff among themselves. My wife's best friend Sarla mimics the more dour among our relatives. "We are not pleased," my wife says to her. Sarla tells her to notch down a few pegs. "They'll soon be gone," she reminds my wife of our famously peripatetic clan, "it'll be just the two of us bargaining for more discounts at the shoe sales again." My wife considers this for a bit before giving her a hug. "We abhor you," she says to Sarla, "but I love you."