When I arrived in the city, entered her house and her
bedroom, she was sleeping on her back, straight and unmoving like a corpse,
covered with a sheet, her arms at her sides. I thought, ‘this is what she’ll
look like when she’s dead.’
I opened the refrigerator and there in its sparkling inside
was a tray of grapes, sliced melon and chicoos. Wow! Just what I needed after a
day of driving and eating nothing. Quite a contrast to the last time I arrived
earlier this month from the US and found a few shriveled grapes and a rotten
banana. The contrast goes back, way back, when there were no welcoming signs
each time I arrived home – no fresh towel hanging in the bathroom, no jug and
glass of water in the room, though the room was always, because of her OCD,
sparkling, squeaky clean. In fact, one of the last fights my parents had before
my dad died was about this. He was bedridden and asked mom if she had put a
clean towel and fresh soap in the bathroom. My mom blew up at him for some
reason, probably for questioning her about her housekeeping abilities, or
reminding her how dear I was to him, or some such thing. He was left shaken and
shivering in his bed. My mother herself told this story to me.
My father, on the other hand, always sent a note and fresh
fruit and food in a cooler through the driver when I arrived in Delhi, “dearest
Kamal, welcome home!”
I greedily ate the fruit and she had woken by then. I gave
her ten kisses, and she did not pull away, as if I had the cooties. She just
sat there and let me kiss her. The other huge change in her is when I say, ma,
I need to go run this or that errand, she says, okay, call Pandit, the driver.
Earlier, she would throw a huge fit: you are always going out; you don’t come
to visit me, just to do your own work. And, miracle of miracles, she now thinks
about me. When I ask her if she needs
something from the market, she says, but you are so busy with your own things,
I don’t want to burden you. When I told her it wasn’t a burden, she asked me to
do several things and thanked me profusely. She had me go to the jeweler to
replace a fallen diamond in a ring she wants to give her favorite nephew’s
wife; buy panties and bras – “But take the money from me! I won’t have you do
my work and pay for it!” Well, she’s more accepting of help from me now. She is
almost ready to start receiving, something she has refused her entire life from
anybody.
This change has come about not so much by itself with time
as a change on my part, too. I have not
been the best of daughters, either. Last time I was here she wanted to invite
her nephew for the day and wanted me to be present the whole day to chat with
him. I refused. I was jet lagged and had too much to do. Besides, I always have
to make a trip and buy some barbecued chicken, etc when he comes. But I felt
bad about refusing. This time I resolved to take out a whole day to do it. I
think it is changes in me that have changed her.
This topic of mother and daughter is a deep one. It deserves
a book, if I didn’t already have too many projects.
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