The Innovative Family Definition By Ashok Chavan

Politicians are known for saying anything that comes in their mind when they are desperate to come out of a fix. It is not uncommon to hear them making remarks that leave us, the mass, in peals of laughter.

But the recent remark of Mr. Ashok Chavan, the chief minister of Maharashtra (I do not know whether he will remain chief minister till the time you will be reading this) was something that left me completely dumbstruck.

Chavan was left red-faced with the leakage of this unpalatable news that his late mother-in-law’s name is there among the list of the illegal allottees of flats in the Adarsh Housing Society, i.e. those flats which were meant for war widows.

Desperate to wash his hands off, Chavan came up with an innovative definition of family. He simply said that a person’s mother-in-law cannot be counted among his relatives. He then went one step further, and categorically presented his own definition of a family. He said that in his view, a family comprises “the husband, the wife, and their children”.

It means, after a man gets married, even his parents do not remain parts of his family anymore, while the man himself remains their relative.

As per Chavan’s definition of a family, my parents ceased to be my relatives on 29th November 2009, i.e. the day I got married to Debyani. But, curiously, I very much remain their relative.

Really, what a definition, Sirji!