My Recent Reflections: 2012

I bask in the receding winter sun as my mum mixes some cut oranges with coriander leaves, chilies, mustard oil and salt to taste – just as I like it. She is humming a song to herself, lost in its tunes, as she momentarily forgets to remind me to take my bath, seeing it is already afternoon and lunch is to be had.
It is so reminiscent of colder winters in my hometown Shillong, that it is not difficult to forget that the last the same scenario would have happened there would have been at least ten years, ago when I was studying for my board exams..
Time sure files; now, I am a married woman, living in a dusty yet relatively nice locality of Gurgaon, where my parents have come to visit. It is at times like this that both my mom as well as I forget that I am no longer that carefree girl in her teens, struggling to keep her personal complexes hidden, relatively reserved except for some friends, who were (an still are) in awe of my supposedly strict parent.

When I got married, it was an arranged love affair with a non-Bengali boy from Himachal Pradesh - I did not expect much change. (Boy was I wrong!). After all, I was still my parents’ daughter, and would be coming home, whenever holidays were available, although henceforth with company in tow. And as I had already been out of home for years then, being away from home was nothing to be scared of. However, at the time of the traditional ‘vidaai’, the environment had become saturated with sadness, nostalgia and poignancy. Tears, previously hidden or non-existent, flowed freely; I felt as if I was being separated from my family forever, and thrust into an unfamiliar set of related people, where the only familiar person was my now lifelong companion.

Almost three years to my marriage now, I can safely say that now there is no poignant sadness attached to my addition to another family. I am happy to declare myself a part of two families, both to equally cherish, although truth be told, I am obviously partial to one.

Every winter, my parents come visit, and I have a gala time, pampered by them, and behaving like a thoroughly spoilt little girl, relegating all responsibilities to their able hands (well of course, except the job part). The relationship between my parents and my husband is also informal and he is very much their Hindi-speaking second son. My mum sometimes tells me that she forgets that I am married – a relatively inconsequential sentence that inexplicably gladdens me. Perhaps, because it means that I have not changed with the bonds of matrimony.

Said to be a duskier reflection of my mum, I share many loves with her – despite generally being held as a daddy’s daughter. The discussions comparing Georgette Heyer’s novels, (would I have entered that charming Victorian world of Georgette Heyer had it not been for my mum’s love of books?), the surreal rhythms of ‘ae-dil-e-nadaan’ – the beautiful song by Lata Mangeshkar, or the movies ‘chupke chupke’ , golmaal, ‘masoom’, some of the Bengali songs she constantly hums (I never tell her that I like them), our mutual yearning for the seas, or travel in general - these bonds of mother-daughter, though not seemingly deep and touching, are these that will never fade, no matter where we are, or how old we become.
With my dad, it is more about bank accounts, investments, home loan, laptop problems, and internet issues. Sometimes, he calls up just to ask about some tickets that I had booked for them, the constant wanderers that my parents are. Or, for the password of the internet banking account that I had set up for him. It is a different love, and yet curiously similar - if without an external sentimentality, but with an implicit comfort.

I still call my mum up and tell to switch on her TV watch as that favourite movie of hers (Abhimaan), or some new film I think she may like, is being aired. I still pester her and ask her for that simple recipe for egg curry or Daal or something similar, ones that she has repeated many times before. She pretends to get annoyed, then patiently repeats them all over again, complaining that this time I should jot it down somewhere. Later she never forgets to ask me how it went.

But, when she’s here with me, I just love not having to be the one worrying about the meal planning – I unabashedly hand over the onus to her. She capably and effortlessly decides the same, taking into account mine as well as everyone else's favourites and directs the help accordingly, and simultaneously preparing savoury dishes of her own. It is a heavenly feeling having her around; again being the young careless girl, with a mother always around to take care of her. Ohh to be back to those days again! That being no longer possible, I am content with these pockets of our time together here, sharing and squabbling over books to be taken, or she forcing me to eat properly (and more) or just basking in the sun with sliced oranges and mustard oil.