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What it's like living in my household

Updated: Jun 21, 2020


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I love my family and I wouldn’t exchange it for any other. I mean, they are awesome and the best but sometimes they're just too much. Other households don’t understand how lucky they are. They can call their family normal whereas I cannot, because if I did, that would be considered the biggest lie of the century. You think I’m exaggerating? HA. Let me show you.

First of all we are Tamil and so everything in my household is very traditional and cultural. I guess that is not such a bad thing but sometimes it gets exhausting. Especially for a girl who grew up away from home in a totally western environment. I can’t keep up with all these cultural things. My grandma is constantly trying get me to stop wearing pants and shirts. (“Good girls wear shalwar. Why don't you wear shalwar? You think you're a boy?”) Also she doesn’t understand my aversion to jewelry. (“You’re a girl. Girls must wear earrings. Where are your earrings?)

All good tamil girls must wear shalwar and jewelry and MUST have long hair according to her. She even tried to make my mum take me to the hospital because she thought I had a problem with my brain. Thankfully my mum is a little bit less traditional than my dear old Grams but she too was horrified when I decided to chop off all my hair, as was all my aunties, uncles, cousins and the rest of the family. I don’t understand. It’s just hair. It grows back. It’s not that big of a deal. My family doesn’t get it though. Me cutting my hair is right up there next to kicking puppies in the list of abominable things a human shouldn’t do.

Don’t get me started on the criticism in my family. No matter what I do, I get criticized. It’s just a normal part of my life. I get things like “This child doesn't know how to walk!” or “ Why are you sitting and doing nothing? When I was little child like you, I ran the family you know? I cooked, cleaned and went shopping all by myself. And what are you doing? NOTHING! Shame Shame.” Sometimes it’s the way I look; “So many pimples on your face! Why don't you rub tumeric? Looking like a damn shame.” or “Your nose is so ugly, must be from your father.” It’s not just me either. No matter where she goes, my mother is ALWAYS criticizing. “Did you see that girl? You see what she's wearing? Damn shame.” she’ll stage whisper to me about some poor girl on the road, or at the market, the coconuts are too small or the tomatoes are too red. There is no pleasing my family. If I ignore their criticism then I’m a ‘rude child with no respect for elders’, but if I agree, they’ll ask me if I’m trying to be too smart. There’s no way to win. It’s exhausting I tell you.

My house is constantly filled with noise. It’s so loud here, I’m surprised we haven’t been arrested for noise pollution.

This is what a normal conversation in my family looks like,

“ BANU! DID YOU FOLD THE LAUNDRY AND PUT IT AWAY?”

“ Ma, why are you yelling? I’m right next to you!”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I’M BASICALLY WHISPERING!!”

See what I mean? And it’s not just the voices either. The TV is blaring out some tamil movie with my grandma sitting in front of it occasionally shouting out comments. She probably thinks the whole world is listening in.

“ KILL THAT MAN, YOU USELESS FELLOW! YOU CALL YOURSELF A MAN? HIT HARDER! BREAK HIS TEETH! DAMN SHAME! or “BANU, LOOK THIS ACTRESS! LOOK AT HER HAIR? WHY YOU NO HAVE LONG HAIR LIKE HER? USELESS CHILD!” And then there’s my mother. She will be in the kitchen cooking, singing along to the radio at the top of her voice even though she can’t carry a tune to save her life, clanging and pounding away with her pots and pans.

So it will be like;

INNUM KONJA NERUM IRUNDHA THAAN ENNA?”

*CRASH! BANG! CLANG!*

AEN AVASARAM?”

*BANG! POW!*

ENNA AVASARAM NILLU PONNE!”

*BADA BOOM!*

She’ll occasionally yell something to the aunty next door, who’ll yell back with equal gusto. So basically a normal day at my house is like someone let loose a hundred klaxons in it. Loud. VERY loud. In order to have one’s voice heard, one must scream one’s head off and take an aspirin for the inevitable headache.

They are all also BIG drama queens. They love making mountains out of molehills. For example, when my mum and my grandmother watch Tamil teledramas on television. The actor on tv would trip over something and cut his little finger and my dear momma and grams would sit there with tears pouring down their cheeks saying “ That poor chellam! He's so brave!” to which my dad and I would look at each other and shake our heads. Or I would complain that I have a headache and the entire family would burst into an uproar. My mum and grandma would first try to call an ambulance and attack me with every kind of remedy they could think of and then, they'd tell everyone and I mean EVERYONE. The next day the postman would ask me whether my headache is better and if I had thought of drinking coconut water because apparently that helps.

My family is overprotective to the extreme. I swear no matter where I go, I'll get a hundred calls from at least five people in my family asking where are I am, what I'm doing, whether I ate and so on.

Speaking of eating, that is an absolute priority at my place. It doesn't matter what happens; the world could be ending for all we know, but as long everyone has had a meal and their stomach is full, everything would be alright. That's the mentality my family has. I could get kidnapped and turn up with half my limbs missing and the first thing my family would ask is, “Did you eat?” or “Are you hungry?”. Yeah, my family has priority issues.

However, for all it's issues, I think my family is unique and amazing. I just wish they would all just tone it down a little bit.



NOTE - The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar, Tamilans or simply Tamils, are an ethnic group who speak the language Tamil as their Mother Tongue and trace their ancestry to Southern India and Northern Sri Lanka.

The words that are in italic are Tamil words.


The words in red: These are lyrics from the Tamil song ‘Innum Konjam Neram’ by song artists A.R. Rahman, Shweta Mohan and Vijay Prakash taken from the movie “Maryan”.


Chellam: This is a tamil term of endearment.


Shalwar: The Shalwar or Shalwar Kameez is a traditional outfit originating in the Indian subcontinent which is made up of a tunic, baggy trousers and a long scarf.


Is your household like this too? Let us know below in the comments!


This essay was written by Banu Kadirgamasamy. You can find her here


Cover image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay

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