How to add fizz in your listless conjugal life during winters?

 

Many moons ago, I saw Bernardo Bertolucci’s SHELTERING SKY based on a story by Paul Bowles. The film dealt with a couple who decides to take a long vacation and go on a trip to give them a last chance at reviving their failing marriage owing to their mundane existence. I remembered this film suddenly today while listening to the radio in the car while going to my workplace …

The FM channel was running an advertisement. One of the lady characters on it was heard asking her Mom-in-law on a wintry day for permission to go out with her husband for a movie which the lady patriarch flatly refused. Thereafter, lady buys her Mom-in-law a room heater. On posing the same query a few days later  prompt comes the reply from Mother-in-law:  “Haan Bahu, Zaroor jaana. Aur dinner bhi bahar karke aana”  (Yes daughter-in-law, go out and enjoy the movie with your husband & also have ‘dinner’ outside)

There goes the secret unknown to Bertolucci and Bowles. If you want to jazz up your married life, buy your Mom-in-law an Usha room heater during this winter…