I sit cross-legged on the bed, notes on Code of Civil Procedure on my right thigh, the bare act to my left and inhale the sound of retro music playing on the radio. Mom loves Vividh Bharati.
The AC cold swirls around in the air and pulls me by the tip of my nose to write out the emotions I am unable to speak on call. What can I do? I am just like my foremothers whose love could never survive the cruelty of being on the lips. So, I use my hands to express like my mom did when she ironed my shirt for the millionth time, like her mom did when she made us pickles for billionth time. I am not as productive as them, though I try to be. All I know best is to write.
I smile when ‘Ek Pardesi Mera Dil Le Gaya’ plays on and reminisce how mom bought me and my brother an old-fashioned radio the size of my palm. We tuned into it like crazy, cleaning the doors and the windows through summer vacations, winter vacations, and Diwali breaks that seem to have frozen in time now.
I remember how amazing mom thought it was that Akashvani radio jockeys recited news timely. She loves knowing everything and I get my love of books and peculiar logic from her. Just today, in the afternoon, she was ranting about how she ends up finding grammatical errors in textbooks while they seem to be invisible to others. I laughed and exclaimed, “Oh, so I get that from you!”
Last week, mom went on and on about how she doesn’t understand why some parents don’t give their children pocket money. I instantly recalled being given an invaluable sum of Rs. 5 per month when I was 9. It was such a novel concept that she would never ask me where the money went. I was so happy. Although I still did save up every penny because spending filled me with extreme guilt – and perhaps, still does – but that is another matter.
Mom and I are similar and different in ways that even we don’t understand. Yesterday, I ranted to her about the western terming of Bihari Madhubani as Mandala Art and Indians lapping it up like idiots. She said, “Oh I have a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts. This Mandala Art nonsense was popularised just 5-10 years ago!” And I agreed and huffed about the need to preserve our Bihari heritage.
Bihari heritage reminds me of blowing cool air on piping hot murauri (grated radish and rice flour batter fried in hot oil) served beside coriander chutney every winter. Mom and I used to sit on a cot splayed out in the balcony, the sun warming our faces red, as we talked about upcoming chores with mouths full of murauri that we could not close due to the hot vapours rising from the dish we couldn’t wait to cool before trying to eat.
I just realised that the sentences in this blog are very long and complex, full of descriptions, commas and unabashed teasing nostalgia. Perhaps, it is my past’s way of apologising for the pain? Who knows?
A writer’s style can be determined by their emotions too. My relationship with mom is like this too – sometimes tiring to read, sometimes the most romanticised version of a filial relationship ever. Whatever it is, it is not a blot of simple sentences thrown on the canvas of life for just any person to be able to make sense of. Hilariously, mom and I come into the category of ‘any person’ too.
Are 600+ words too many to tell my mom that I miss her?
Maybe. But it isn’t my fault that it is 10.50 pm now and she sleeps by 10 pm. After all, her bad habit of sleeping early isn’t gonna go anywhere so soon.
Aru Shan 