Deaf in DC: A Memoir

40. Weeds Theory

166 40 Weeds Theory LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, I LEARNED MOST OF MY LESSONS outside the classroom. We all face real-life experiences that have profound effects on us. I had my share of “learning on the street” and one of these experiences was in Austin, Texas. We had moved to Austin in 1984. We bought a house in a community called Travis County. It was a nice community and a nice house. But I had a concern. The Great American Hobby of keeping lawns perfect had become a major problem for me. The neighbors on both sides had nothing else to do but to make sure their lawns looked perfect. They watered them regularly, mowed them each Saturday, and edged the lawn to make it look perfect. I told Nirmala that our neighbors paid more attention to their lawns than to their wives. She was curious: “How do you know?” Well, my observation wasn’t very scientific. Nirmala, who liked flowers and plants and had the house full with them and paid as much attention, if not more, than my neighbors did to their lawns, was concerned about our lawn. I did water it and I did mow it and I also edged it, but it didn’t look half as beautiful as my neighbors’ lawns. I thought it was my bad luck to have bought a house between two lawn-obsessed guys. However, walking around Travis County proved that almost all houses had lawns like my neighbors. I was glad to see one lawn that looked worse than mine. I wanted to shake hands with the owner, but then I saw a sign that the house was for sale. The lawn had been neglected for some time. One Saturday morning when I was thinking about reading a couple of books, Nirmala, who, like all good wives, has the uncanny ability to read her husband’s mind, pointed at me accusingly. “Did you see our lawn?” I got worried. The question had the unmistakable bearing of some work for me. w e e d s t h e o ry 167 “I see it all the time,” I assured her. “It is beautiful!” “It is full of weeds,” she countered. I wasn’t aware of weeds. The lawn was green and there were some yellow flowers, which I thought gave a nice touch. The mixture of various kinds of “grass” in the lawn, in my opinion, made it more beautiful. Not to Nirmala, who admired the monotonous density of green grass on both sides of our house. I felt depressed. There would be no book reading, I knew. I asked her what she wanted me to do. She already had done her research and had some discussions with the neighbors’ wives. They had educated her how to totally destroy her husband’s Saturday. I looked at Dheeraj and Neerja for support. They became very engrossed in the books they were reading. It was a clear message: I was on my own. Nirmala produced a small tool, which looked like a long screwdriver but was a weed eradicator or antireading implement. She explained that I had to go out and get the weeds out. My efforts to postpone this event by a week was countered with her, “OK, I guess I have to do it myself.” This is the worst kind of blackmail and I found myself squatting in the lawn in the hot Texans sun trying to weed. There were about a few million and I guessed I would be retired from my job at the Texas School for the Deaf by the time I was finished. However, there is a God! A few minutes into my grunt work, I felt someone standing next to me. I wiped sweat off my eyes and looked. It was Bob, the neighbor on the right side. He was a nice guy even though he had a great lawn. He was smiling and I tried to figure out how much sarcasm was there, but the sun was in my eyes. Bob asked me to stop and come with him. I was very happy to stop and followed him to his house. He showed me an advertisement for lawn fertilizer and told me to go buy three bags. I was puzzled. “Look,” I said, “I got those weeds to take care of. I will think about the fertilizer when I am done with them.” In about twenty years, I thought to myself. He shook...