Athithi devo bhava - does that thing still exist??

We all know the term "athithi devo bhava" meaning a guest is like a god and needs to be treated like one. I have grown up in a family wherein guests dropped by every single day, most of them unannounced. I have never seen my mom make a face or get mad. No matter how tired she was after toiling for 10 hrs at the bank, she would still enthusiastically whip up a mean meal with about 10 entrees and a couple of desserts thrown in. My grand mother on the other hand used to live in a joint family with 6 other brother-in-laws and their wifes and their kids and ofcourse her Monster-in-law (read my gread grand mother). She would toil in the kitchen from 4 am to 10 pm feeding everybody who would stop by. She was known as "Annapurneswari" the goddess of food and the name is just apt for her. I on the other hand prefer some advance notice. I need to make sure the house is clean, my china set is nicely polished, the floor is vaccumed and the whole enchilada. But one thing, if I do invite someone I make sure that every thing is in order and I try my best to cook a decent 3 course meal. I also make sure to cook something new and innovative.

I was in Bangalore 6 months ago visiting family and had to face an interesting situation and wanted to blog about this, rather rant about this so here I am.
The hubby wanted to visit his cousins so he started calling them up one by one, they are actually three of them and they are all his mom's sister's sons. G is very close to them as he practically grew up with them as they were neighbours for 15 long years. When you are in India, you need to have an agenda and a list of people of visit. If you visit some one and leave out the others, they are bound to get offended. On top of that, there is this running between your In-laws house and your mother's house which tires you out completely. Any way, I digress, two of the brothers (B1 and B2) invited us for lunch and dinner respectively. We first went to B1's house, we were very warmly received and they showed us their new house which is one of the most famous houses in Bangalore renowned for it's terrace garden and an exquisite architectural plan. Their cook had made some really delicious dishes and the best part was that my daughter immediately took to their kids. They busied themselves by pampering my daughter. We had a great time and came back happy.

B2 wanted us to visit his place for dinner on a Sunday. I had already made plans and had accepted an invite to have dinner at my mom's sister's house. She is like a second mother to me and I call her amma. I was really looking forward to that and here comes this invite. I tried to decline politely, but B2 insisted and said that his wife who is a doctor is not free on any other day. I had to relent as hubby G really wanted to meet his cousin's family. I cancelled my other plans, my aunt was not too happy about this, but I somehow convinced her . Finally we reached B2's place at the appointed hour, we kept ringing the bell, after a good 10 mins B2 comes and opens the door and invites us in. The wife is nowhere to be seen. We were trying to make polite conversation, and at 9 p.m after a good 1 hour or so the wife makes a grand entrance. She says that she was working and was on the phone to discuss something. My kid was getting hungry and she usually has her dinner at 7 p.m and this was well after her regular schedule. This lady just sits and stares at us and then goes off to the kitchen to make coffee for herself, didn't even bother to ask if we wanted something. My daughter followed her to the kitchen and asked her "aunty I am hungry", I felt so bad on seeing this. I just dragged my daughter away and looked at my hubby's face. The look I had was enough to kill someone believe me. Hubby got the point and he got up and said we need to leave, at this point of time this lady says the food is on the table, please help your self and walks back to her room for another hour(!). B2 insisted us to have dinner and I tried to feed my daughter, the curry was spoilt as it had a bad smell, the rasam looked like it was made a century ago. Nobody can fool me with left over food, I am pretty good and spotting them in a quick manner. The chapatis were rock solid. The funny thing was their kids, especially the precorious 5 year old told me "Aunty I like this rasam, we had this yesterday and day before. I love it". This lady who had vanished for another hour came out at 10-30 pm, just when we were getting ready to leave. Her only question was when we were planning on coming back to Bangalore and whether we had invested in a house in US or not. I wanted to tell her that it was none of her bloody business, but kept quiet as hubby was trying to restrain me with his pleading eyes. All in all a total disappointment. When you are not interested in entertaining guests, why go through the pain of inviting them and insulting them? that is my pet peeve.

I had to share this with my MIL mainly because she still seems to hold a grudge that during our wedding, my parents did not do the honours of inviting my inlaws to have the lunch with the bride and groom (this is called bhoomada oota in Kannada). It clearly did not matter to her that my aunts and uncles and scores of other relatives personally waited on them and invited them. She would keep saying that my family does not know the meaning of athithi devo bhava blah blah. I shared this incident with her and waited for a reaction, she just kept quiet and didn't even open her mouth.