(note: this is only part one of the trilogy- How I met my brother –in –law (to be)!

also, jiya-ji=jiju=aliyan=brother in law)

“Life comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.”

Wall Street (1987) – Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen)

Everyone knows my brother in law (to be); he is a “celebrity” in the contemporary literary scene. Everyone knows him, except for me! . No, don’t get me wrong, I am not sad or anything. It’s just that, since my hubby (to be) says that his brother “ shaped ”(pun intended) his life a lot, I was really eager and curious to meet this master craftsman of a brother- in- law. Besides there is this thing .I had always hoped that my brother- in- law would turn out to my best friend.

This “Jiju- my best friend fixation” has been there for a good seven years, ever since my good friend Saira told me how her brother- in- law, her “Chachan”, although seven years older to her was her best friend. Maybe my hormone intoxicated teenage friend was just trying to show off then. But the idea had struck gold with me; it was here to stay.

And finally this year all the stars seem to align. Seven years! Seven years I had waited and finally everything seemed to fall in place .I had finally found the guy I wanted to marry and somehow everything seem to fit in so beautifully. The last piece of the puzzle was my Jiju, and guess what? He is exactly seven years older to me. What an auspicious number- seven? But alas! The glitch was that although I had all the pieces of the puzzle, I could not play the game, because I couldn’t get him to play! Damn.

All this happened because my “jiya-ji” suddenly shot up the pedestal of fame and acclaim and left the country to make home in the “English island” like his other successful counterparts, lest he be massacred by the hoards of his not-English enough fans.

And thus while my sweetheart and I got engaged, my jiju was blissfully unaware of the large acquisition he had just made- a new “sister and friend”. And as Jiju was busy scribbling at his notepad looking at the Thames, I was, toiling the summer heat in central Kerala, hearing stories about him and his beautiful wife from everyone else in the family.
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Months passed, and I heard more and more tales and anecdotes of his valor and greatness. Of how “Einstein-acular” his intelligence was and how he marched (because he cant drive) all the way from Kerala to Delhis threshold to marry his beautiful Punjabi “Helen” maiden who could stop a thousand elephants with just a look. (To put Greek, into context for my Malayali reader). Time chimed, stories grew; yet I never met him.

Finally one evening I decided to put myself out of this “suspense” torture. Everyone warned me that my efforts to connect with him would be futile, because he is almost always in “Enthiran mode” and he traded his human coat for self-preservation. He apparently attacks with ‘2 play-stations, four laptops and a desktop computer’. And here I was thinking what kind of a guy in his right mind gives up on the “saali tho aadhi gharwali “ offer. Bottom line is “ my Jiju is the Endhiran”!