Aerobics!

(posted by Janine)
Sport opens new doors. Last week Mikkel wrote about the marriage we got invited to through some of his badminton mates. As for me, I get some fascinating experiences through my aerobics/taebo class –and I’m not only talking about the funny Indian moves I’m learning. First of all our teacher, or ‘master’, is distracted for about one-third of the time because he’s on the phone or sending sms-es. And half of the times, it becomes a private class since I am the only participant. But when I do have a fellow participant, our Indian taebo moves usually get disturbed by the long discussions between this girl and the ‘master’ about his marriage problems! The master is having a love-marriage (=not arranged) and therefore… a LOT of trouble. He complains about his wife’s demanding behaviour and the girl gives him advice as if it is relationship therapy. You can imagine me standing next to them hinting to continue the class…but it never helps. In the meantime, she secretly explained to me that in a ‘normal marriage’ like hers, people usually don’t have problems like that.

Now the reason that I am often having ‘private class’ is because this other girl (or woman actually) has to stay at home to host some visitors of the family. This family consists of her daughter, her husband, his parents and his grandparents. According to their ‘tradition’, she has to run the whole household. When her father-in-law stands up, it is necessary that she also stands up to show him respect. She explained this to me when I had (a huge) dinner at her place yesterday. All this doesn’t mean that she has no ambitions. In fact, she has graduated in both English literature and sociology and worked for one year as an education consultant. She told me that she very much enjoyed her work but then…she got married. Her new husband didn’t want her to continue working and according to the tradition, you have to obey your husband. So she quit and became a housewife, even long before she had her child.
They live in a tremendously big house with a dog, inside garden-pond, roof terrace and (of course!) two maids: 17-year old girls from a rural village, who almost dropped their plates when I arrived, out of excitement for seeing a foreigner. Her 10-year old daughter has the biggest collection of Barbie’s I have seen in my life –hundreds of them- still packed in their original plastic. Not that the daughter sleeps in her room, because according to the tradition, it would be selfish of parents to keep their children separate. So the child always sleeps in bed with them.

When the parents of my aerobics-partner found her a suitable husband 14 years ago, they were engaged for 5 months and by the time they married, she was actually in love with him. So she is happy with her life and with her marriage. And now she is giving all her best advice to the aerobics-master because she knows what a good marriage is all about…

In the meantime, I might not get the work-out that I wanted and will never get the hang of these Indian moves, but at least I get to hear some interesting relationship-gossips!






For the ones who are curious to know the Tamil version of Brad Pitt (his name is Vijay and he is all over on the billboards):








With Prasad and Didi (Janines classmate from holland) in one of the few Chennai bars:







Typical street sight after a heavy heavy rainfall: