From home to house

Every time my mother leaves for her native place, a soft purry kitten dies. Hold that thought, PETA. Just got the metaphor wrong! What i meant to say was: whenever my mother leaves for Manipal, we find ourselves in a fix. It's only when she is not at home that we realise how important she is to everyone's survival—including the houseplants'. This time around, she will be gone for about two weeks or so. And as usual, my dad will pretend to take over only to give up within 48 hours and announce "To Each His Own, Boys" silently. Anyway, he's 66 so can't blame him for...being so smart. My brother is going to be smug thanks to his self-reliant techniques. He doesn't bother anyone, unlike us two. Regardless, several factors are going to bother us. The cobwebs, for instance. You see, if you don't clean them regularly, they become a part of your pessimistic life. Anyway, change is a way of existence too, right? You wish. In our house (no, no, not sweet home), nobody is going to enter kitchen anymore—except for water perhaps when one is dying of thirst—as each of the three fusketeers (read: fuss-creators) will depend entirely on outside food. The sparrows and pigeons are going to miss their morning nosh. The tulsi is going to curse us for not taking proper care of her. Milk shall become an alien food because it requires boiling and more importantly, the need to make sure it doesn't spill. The bathroom is going to reek of bachelorhood. Water is going to overflow and clothes are going to remind us that although May has ended, Indian summer hasn't. The fridge will continue to be our BFF but its biochemical status will change significantly. For what this 'change' is worth, i can assure that none of us are going to learn our lessons or treat my father's old wife properly when she returns. Fair enough.

PS: Three soft purry kittens dying in a year is not a big deal, PETA.

Awwwww, that was cute!

Being the reticent person that my amma is, she doesn’t reveal much. I mean, word-wise. Seldom would she come up with entertaining anecdotes. She’s way too busy for emotional trite. She is a robot. I mean, work-wise. Unlike most of my friends’ moms I know, she finds respite in chores. If there isn’t any, she’ll invent one and get going with it. With such a slogger at home, things are meant to be difficult for a born slacker like me—and it certainly is.

But this morning, something changed. In ways I can’t explain, age seemed to be catching up with her. At least a little bit. She shared a humorous incident that happened in 1989. My younger brother was slightly more than a year old then and asked amma to open her mouth. She was having a chocolate which he earnestly took out with his tiny fingers and popped into his own mouth and walked away. This made her laugh alone heartily almost 23 years ago. This made us laugh together heartily almost 23 years later.

Confessions

There are million of topics to cover. Still, I’ve decided to write about my mother. It has something to do with recent “developments” around me. She turned 57 yesterday. And we celebrated it for the first time! Birthdays aren’t a big event in our household especially after my younger brother’s demise that happened too soon and too long back.

Lately, I haven’t been good to her and of course, I feel bad about it. And the worst thing is, she never changed a bit towards me. I did the changing part. The same old love, the same old care, the usual insecurity about my future. I wasn’t this bad when I was a kid. She used to call me “bangaar baaley” which in Tulu translates to “Golden Kid”. I hardly troubled her with my studies because I was an above average kid in school whereas my younger bro, Sai, was terrible and a pathetic student. He kept my poor amma (mom) on her heels.

But times change, don’t they? Today, he is the blue-eyed boy who picked himself up and made strides to book himself among the brights whereas I left the corridor of success to wander in the delight of carelessness. I don’t blame anything or anyone for my current state of disarray but the only one person who really suffered was she. She placed huge hopes and labor to realize her dreams of seeing me like my former schoolmates and friends are now.

She was supportive even when I told her I wanted to be a writer. My dad didn’t had a clue how a writer becomes a writer. But she had her doubts and those doubts took the better off her. She was misled into believing that writers or academicians had no “healthy” future. Remarkably, she didn’t coerce me into engineering. I was just listless so I must admit she just did her part of a good mother, accompanying me to colleges for rounds of application and cut-offs. She was always there trying to catch up with my quick steps.

I didn’t complete my graduation. Let alone complete, I didn’t attend even college properly or appeared for exams. Instead I was lost in my world of words and poem. I was sinking in the quicksand of world cinema. I used to bunk college to attend film festivals all over Mumbai. I did everything that I was already doing in Nashik but at least I was studying well there. Here, I was a thorough truant, possessed and a confirmed variant. Ultimately I left engineering for good in 2008.

She is a pious lady so she was appalled when I decided to discontinue practicing the religious rituals I was used to since I was a kid. That too disappointed her a bit but she never wailed or made a big fuss out of it. Although at times, she did made it known that maybe, I was paying for disservice towards God. She thought my mind was clouded. I just laughed it off and I still laugh.

Even on the day of cancelling admission, I remember her talking to the clerk with poignant expression and asking her “whether “it was common for students to leave engineering?” She is naive but honest. I exploited every bit of it.

She is beloved. Everyone loves her. She used to be crowded by my friends during school days whenever she came for exam paper checking day. Even today, my colleagues at office seemingly feel that I’m the “bad guy” in the play. They are right, nonetheless.

One of my closest friend, Afzal, lost his mom last week and I saw him cry for the very first time in our five years of contact. I can’t even fathom the kind of lost he must be feeling. How can you ever replace someone as vital as you mother? Will I be able to make it outside if there isn’t a mother inside my home? Was I really not a mama’s boy and just pretended to be papa’s champ? Questions kept flooding and are still flowing in. Mothers are just great and that’s exceptionally natural.

So, yesterday, I decided to cut off from my usual classes and decided to surprise her by taking her to an eatery nearby and it was one great affair. While Its funny how I never took my mother anywhere because I was busy with my movies, Internet, poems and words. Sai was the one doing the things a son is supposed to. I was busier calling him “amma’s pet”! By the way, she wanted me to visit my barber as a birthday gift!

I wish she lives a happy life and find a day to see me as someone I want to be-contend and free. But she is of the old mode so it will take time and I’m going to make the best of that time available. I’m going nowhere. I’m just going to change.