The older members of my family tend to mention my stroke to everybody while Jaya picks and chooses to whom she can speak about it. I am temperamentally more inclined towards the latter approach but there is a practical reason for this apart from the one I had mentioned earlier.
When people first hear about my stroke they are shocked. Then, if there is a business transaction to be concluded (say, a house to be taken on rent or an item to be purchased on credit), the person will switch to a more practical mode and start wondering how we will settle our obligations if no one is working .
A recent incident illustrates this point. My mother was staying in a rented house not far from here. When she had initially negotiated the rent, the landlord had said that she could stay as long as she liked, she just had to renew the agreement every year and that the increase in rent will be marginal. After a couple of years, the landlord asked her if she could vacate the house as he had decided not to give the house on rent any more. He said that he had built the house for his son who had now decided to settle down in Coimbatore and was going to stay in the house. So my mother took another house on rent nearby.
Jaya immediately told me that this must be some tall story designed to get my mother to vacate the house. Perhaps the landlord was feeling awkward about increasing the rent. Perhaps he had doubts about her ability to pay if he did increase the rent. Anyway, it was no surprise when he let out the house to someone else after a month, presumably for a higher rent.
This is why Jaya prefers not to bargain using my name. Being a privileged guy, I have not faced major problems because of this line of thinking but it must be causing problems for people a lot less lucky than me.
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