My uncle.One of the most painful moments in life is to wait for middle or above middle aged relative. You have to be prepared with all kinds of answers. The moment they see you, they will pounce upon you with sugar coated wishes covering tactical queries.Today is one such day for me. I am mentally prepared with variety of answers. You bet.

“How are you?” asked uncle.

“I am very fine uncle.”

“How is your house shaping up?”

“Very fine uncle.”

“Shall we go and see.”

“Yes sure.”

“You know, my son is also constructing a flat. I just wanted to see the quality between the constructors.So how is your new job?”

“Fine uncle.”

“Why did you leave that job?”

“Because I could not travel up to Mahindra city.”

“Ok.Ok. That’s why My son has gone to US.”

“That’s great uncle.”

We were in the newly constructed house, with just the civil work complete and interior part going on.

“So how much budget did you allocate for interiors.”

“It depends on what you want.”

“No no. Why I am asking this is, did you had a budget in mind or is it a free open ended budget.”

“Well uncle it was just an open ended budget”

He decided to drill further to find the total worth of that house. I was ready with defense mechanism.

“Did you go for Loan?”

“Yes uncle. Half of my salary goes for the home loan itself.”

“Ok. Which bank did you go for?”

“ICICI.”

“That means 9.25 fixed interest.”

I was bamboozled.

“Yes Uncle.”

He estimated my take home and the total worth of my house with one question and he summarized the same to me with the precision of a fifth attempt CA.He then took me to a nearby bunk shop for a cool drink. That shop guy took a cigarette for me out of pattern matching.I was under a fix and got some free advice from the uncle on the perils of smoking.Later he enquired the bunk shop owner the current going rate in that area and he summarized my current net worth.

He then tapped a nearby worker and found out that the rate per square feet for the interior would be approximately 800 to 900 rupees. Then he summarized my interior design budget. I was wondering where these uncles pick up this art of budget making? For me he looked most venomous than a king cobra and more deadly than saddam Hussein.

He asked me the name of the interior designer. I wanted to lie. But I told him his name.I know that he would now some how come out with my spending habits in the next few days.I wont be surprised if he averagely summarizes my bar visits and the number of packets I have smoked so far.

As a freebie he can predict my life expectancy and the age by when I started this habit.He finally said to me, “good bye kanna. Take care. Come to my house once.”

I went to his newly built flat. He had plagiarized our house design and his house looked better than mine.

I hated the smirk on his face.What else can I say?