Wealth off the beaten track

A few weeks back, my sister and her husband, on their way back from the boondocks of Punjab to the boondocks of Rajasthan, stopped over at a cousin's home in a town so small, it would be difficult to locate on Google Map. She - my cousin, that is - had apparently moved into a new house, so my mother had suggested that my sister might want to visit, since anyway the highway passed through the town so small as to be nearly nameless. "It will probably be kitschy," my sister had shared her anxiety ahead of the visit, "and embarrassing to say nice things without being sincere." I tut-tutted with her. People can be sensitive about their homes.

This was a cousin, just for the record, who is on everyone's "did-you-know?" list. When family scandals get discussed at outings, she gets top billing. Our favourite is from the time we served a Chinese meal at my parents' home in Bikaner - well before Manmohan's Singh's economic reforms - when everything for their anniversary party had been carted from New Delhi, and anything that was unavailable had to be improvised locally. The dinner hadn't been a success. Guests would have preferred their lal-maas. Most toyed with their food. The crotchety cousin asked for rotis and had a tantrum because she wasn't up for sweet n' sour lamb.

"She has no bedside manners," we'd stage whisper, and indeed, for a doctor, she was more gruff than reassuring. Her husband was the family's general practitioner of choice, but since my cousin was prone to ticking him off in front of everyone, he chose to ply his practice among strangers rather than family, even though, really, we were only acquaintances. And then they shifted bag and baggage to some frontier outpost. There were rumours they'd managed super-specialisations, but we weren't in touch. Other said their kids were geniuses who, when they sometimes called to speak, it was with a confidence our city-bred brats lacked. Oh well, we said enviously, at least the kids had done the clan proud.

And now, in a town riven by a highway, my sister said our cousin had built a mansion. "Yes, well, land is cheap in hobo-land," I smirked, "Besides, she must keep buffaloes for milk." "I didn't see a dairy," my sister reflected, "but there was a row of garages." An Audi was parked in the porch. My cousin drove a Beemer. Nor was she some small-town achiever. Her husband had built her a gym for which a service operator came from Jaipur every week to attend to the machines. A personal trainer, luckily for them, had agreed to stay on the premises and double up as a driver. They had a small auditorium with La-Z-Boy chairs for their guests, and massage chairs for themselves. They were wondering whether a swimming pool made sense - no one in the family swam, but it would look good in photographs - or whether to have a lily pond instead.

My sister and brother-in-law were made to take the house tour. They sat in the massage chairs; they were driven to view their farm in the Audi; they were even given gym tracks and a chance to use the machines so they could get the kinks out of their body. And then it was time for lunch. "Would you believe Chinese," laughed my sister, "wontons, chilli chicken, sauteed vegetables." My cousin, always known for her voracious appetite, ate heartily. Nothing suggested that she missed rotis, nor once did she ask for any.