The first words spoken by Eve were, "Adam, did you again forget to...." And that's no joke. The institution of marriage is a unique practice of Homo sapiens sapiens that instantly turns a normal woman into a screamer at her better half. Women are quite different from men, is a well worn-out argument but how different is different is a daily revelation to men. It is man's failure not to be able to understand the mind of his woman and that is because many men have refused to meet their wife's tailors. Such husbands are forever doomed. Here is an observation made for husbands too shy to practice this advice.

My wife prefers (orders me?) to drive her to her tailor instead of giving this pleasure to the driver because she truly believes that only spouses should be privy to the psychology (and tyranny) of interaction between a woman and her tailor. Each episode of visit to the tailor is a rather routine. As soon she hops in the front seat of the car, a query comes from me, "Is she getting more clothes stitched?" Didn't she have some done recently? To which the response comes that the floor is not open for such silly discussions since it has already been two weeks. I excuse myself routinely for such silliness. The drive to the tailor's den is short but quite interesting. She would not talk to me in the car and instead would be busy fumbling with a bundle full of pieces of clothes that look always messed up to me (but I have never told this to her). As soon as we arrive at the tailor shop, I am asked to park the car as close as possible to the shop and wait for her in the car. The tailor of course recognizes our car and the first impression on his face is a routine flushing. Had I not known enough about the medical definition of jaundice, I would have suggested a blood test for hepatitis B. The man virtually turns pale, probably with the agony of anticipating the response he is about to get when he discloses to my wife that her job is not ready. But I must hand it to him, the man knows how to take the emotional and verbal abuse and still keep smiling. What amazes me is that he always convinces my wife that it was not his fault. The arguments range from the loss of electric power to certain gross illness in close and distant relatives to death of an out of state relative. On rare occasions when other arguments appear wearing out, he pops up the birth of a new child to her Bhabi and that surely brings him out of the woods quickly. If only I had kept a record of number of deaths and power shortages and of course the births and illness of his children, I would have been able to write a script for formula movie but that is not important. The important part is that he is able to convince women. And that should create curiosity among the lesser men--men at odds with their wives. So, I decided to enhance my knowledge and learn more about the conversations taking place between my wife and her tailor.

I began accompanying my wife to her tailor instead of waiting for her in the car and eavesdropped into her conversation. What I heard was not only revealing, it should put Freud to shame. And this is how it works. After receiving detailed instructions that are repeated at least three times, the tailor (or whatever is left of the man) continues to show a great deal of interest and rhetorically with each repetition he utters a few words to make sure that my wife realizes that not only is he listening attentively, he is also enjoying hearing her. Now that does contrast with how my wife and I hold our routine conversations.

By paying extra heed and actually getting involved in a conversation that pleases her most, he wins her heart outright. Now after having done all instructing, my wife pops up the question. I mean, about the delivery of the job. And that's where I got my second jolt of reality and a renewed realization of my ineptness in dealing with my wife. Instead of responding to my wife's query about the delivery date, he turned the tables and simply and plainly asked her when does she want it back. Of course, my wife cleverly told him a lie (which I am sure he knew too well but did not smack) and kept a margin of at least a week from when she really needs the dress. To this, the disciple of Freud simply answered, Insha-Allah, and the conversation ended with farewell greetings. But wait, as she began to walk out of the shop, he stopped her and beseechingly asked her how did her friends like her wearing the last dress he stitched. Hearing this Platonic query, my wife's face suddenly brightened up. Now look at the structure of the query. He does not ask her how the dress was stitched. He wanted to know how others praised my wife wearing a dress that he stitched. Now, I have yet to find a lady that would not be dying to tell the whole world how "gorgeous, chic, divine, cute.." she looked wearing a new dress. (Actually, women use a plethora of adjectives that are so badly mixed up that it is often difficult for men to figure out if they are really praising, feeling jealous or even ridiculing each other. So, men, stay out of understanding this part for now.) My wife responded, "Oh! they all loved it." Now having heard it, he let out a great relief of sigh for a job well done and knew that he is well covered until the next trip of Mrs. Niazi.

The follow up on deliveries is quite religious and she almost always anticipates alibis in the first few visits for which she braces herself before entering the shop. However, as the tailor habitually turns pale, my wife gets reassured that the man is really embarrassed and that makes her sympathetic to him and willing to accept whatever crap he dumps on her. He wins of course and my wife admonishes him and even threatens him never to return to his shop (which he knows is a hollow one) and then keeps returning.

The last time when I drove my wife to her tailor was perhaps most educational It was the first follow up of the promised delivery date and before entering the shop my wife told me rather amusingly to be ready to hear some new BS She even bet that this gotta' be the power outage since that had been the in thing in those days. Well, Lo! and behold we enter the shop and like fine clockwork events worked their way to the ice breaking conversation, "What's the excuse this time?" He turned pale as always and responded shyly, "Bibi, you must think I make up stories." My wife just stood there, perhaps conjuring up how to swallow this audacity when he propped up the dresses right in front of her from under the shelf. She was stunned and asked him in a very apologetic way, how come he was so prompt this time. The answer he gave was really worth framing. "Oh! It was not easy, all I had to do was to delay the work of other ladies." My wife was overjoyed not only because she got her job done but that she was the lady of preference.

Now here are the lessons that I have learned from my wife's tailor how he keeps her happy: