J Mausi-known to others as Miss J
J Mausi (Aunt)- known to others as Miss J- is a tiny, frail and slender woman, with huge, ever curious eyes peering from big horned rimmed glasses. She wears dresses with pretty floral patterns and comfortable flat sandals and all her clothes are tailor made with the design carefully chosen from the old leafy catalogs of a popular UK based magazine'Woman's Weekly' . The tailor who makes these dresses for Miss J has been doing that since about 35 years and sits in a corner shop in the main road of my small hometown. He is a rickety old man with thick glasses and knows that Miss J likes her dresses to be a modest below the knee length and comfortable during summers.
Apart from being my mom's colleague and friend, J Mausi was also my first kindergarten class teacher. She is the one who taught me my first alphabets and held my tiny hands and showed me the tricks of cursive writing. She also often smacked me on my head for the silly little mistakes I made. Miss J had a long wooden ruler in her classroom cupboard with which she would discipline the naughtiest miscreants in her class. She was also later treat the aforementioned miscreant with candy to make up for the disciplining. She once told me, that she would rather have loved to teach little unruly boys. 'Little boys are much more fun than peeved little girls who wailed at the sight of the wooden ruler'
Miss J never married in life and many rumors were whispered in the ears of girls during tiffin hours about her life. Some girls told me she used to be a nun and then she got bored of the nunnery and became a teacher. Some told me she suffered from blood cancer and went to Bombay every month to have all her blood drained out and then be replenished with fresh new blood. I always scoffed at these silly little stories. J Mausi, known to others as Miss J, was my mausi and I knew she went to Bombay to meet her brother and his nephews. I knew because before every trip to Goa (via Bombay) my mother and she would go out shopping to buy clothes and gifts for each of her nephews. With my hands in my waist, I would promptly tell off these rumor mongers. But I would go back home and ask my mother in hushed awe - "Is it true Mausi was a nun?" My mother would almost always silence me with a -"Never mind!'
J Mausi passed on to me her precious gift of love for books. She would borrow books of Enid Blyton such as 'Noddy' (Oh how I loved Noddy) and 'Malory Towers' as well as 'Hardy Boys' , 'Famous Five' and 'Nancy Drew' from the library in her name and bring them in a bundle on Sunday mornings after her church service , much to my utter squeals of delight. When I grew up to be a teenager, I would go to her room right next to the school dormitory and hunt for more books to read in her box full of books.She was the one who introduced me to the passionate world of old issues of Mills and Boon and Georgette Heyer and also, a tiny book of raunchy jokes.That tiny book found a second home below my mattress and would be taken out in the dark of the night to be read under the covers in torchlight, the same book which was later found and seized by my mother.
J Mausi's room was fascinating. It was tiny (everything about J Mausi was tiny, except her wooden ruler) with a single bed with a hanging mosquito net in the center, a cupboard , her box filled with books and a study table near the window. Next to the tiny book of 'Hail Mary' on her table, she had half a bottle of McDowell's whiskey. Scandalized, I would ask her if it was indeed whiskey- and she would laugh out aloud and tell me it was just water. I never really believed her. Now that I know - probably she was right, whiskey's are never transparent...are they?
How I loved J Mausi, known to others as Miss J!! As an adolescent extremely conscious of my changing body, I would find underwear shopping trips with my mom excruciating painful. One day she went along with us during one such trip and gasped in utmost horror when she saw what my ever practical mother would buy for me while I tried my best to find specks of dust in my shoe. 'Pristine white cotton with no elastic??!!' She exclaimed horrified- and loudly...and I was sure even the watchman at the store entrance could hear her- she proceeded to state in no uncertain terms exactly what she thought of my mom's choice- "Your mother is useless- I'll buy you the real deal ' and then oblivious to my discomfort, dragged me towards the more adventurous sections.
Years later, when I left for the US- J Mausi hugged me tight and told me that I was the child she never had. She also promptly told me to get a boyfriend. We both giggled. Then, immediately-:"Sush...what would your mother think!!
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