Mother dear.

Mothers! Them glorified creations, revered equal to (and sometimes greater than) the Lord Almighty. Who understands them? Mine is one of a kind, though. If you met her you’d never believe my stories and I won’t ever be able to open my mouth again. But you won’t (meet her, that is) and I shall (open my mouth, that is).

She is a living paradox, this one, always contradicting herself. And when I point it out to her, she gives me this look that makes me feel like the village idiot. Take the time when I came back home from school one day ( 2^nd std) and declared that I hated this classmate of mine because she had a huge purplish blotch covering her left eye and part of her cheek and that made her look ugly. My mother thinks “Lecture Time! Ta daaa!” and then proceeds to objurgate me with, it’s what is INSIDE that matters than what is on the OUTSIDE. Beauty is only skin deep and one should never judge a book by the cover and what kind of a person was I to like only good looking people? What if I had green hair and 50 teeth? Did that mean I was a bad person? Blah blah blah…you get the idea. So, after 5 hours of listening to her ranting, I feel like I’ve had a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. (Refer The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) (Or you can Google it, of course.) (And I didn’t know that the way I felt that day was the same as having a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster but, now I do. So, read on. It gets weirder.) And sure enough I felt terrible about it and very conscientiously, was nice to that girl afterward. Fast forward a week and we’re out buying vegetables at the local market. My mother refuses to buy vegetables from any person that doesn’t fulfill all of the following criteria. Mind you, all of them:

1. Must be wheatish complexioned or fair.
2. Must have eyes, nose and mouth in the designated positions on the face.
3. Must have well aligned white teeth and all 32 of them.
4. Must smile in a decent and friendly way.
5. Must resemble, to some extent, Dilip Kumar or Dharmendra – if a man, and Hema Malini or Vyjayanthi Mala – if a woman.

“But mummy!” I squeak. “Hmm?” says my mother busily scanning the area for her ideal vegetable seller. “But mummy, you said, it doesn’t matter what the person looks like. So why can’t we buy vegetables from anyone? It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t look good, we have to see if he is selling good vegetables and not rotten ones, no?” I say, feeling very lofty. She gives me The Look (No, not the Roxette one). “Rubbish! Who told you that? Appearance is everything. If you look good, everything about you is good. Remember that always. If you grow up to be beautiful, you’ll be happy, everything will work out well for you. And if you don’t, well, we’ll just have to start saving up for plastic surgery.” she rattles off as she gives me a good jiggle as if to shake stupid ideas out of my head. I should have protested but all that died within me even before they reached my throat. I was terrified of my mother!

See what I mean? Not yet, huh? This next one should help.

I come back home from school, crying. (4^th std) A boy called me fat and when I didn’t respond, pushed me so hard that I fell and hurt myself. My mother – “Don’t get me involved in all this. You should handle your school stuff yourself. If he touches you again, hit him right back. You have to stand up for yourself. Be strong! Shush child, stop crying now!” The very next day, I bring back a note from my teacher for my parents, saying I hit a boy in class for no reason. I explain to my parents that I hit him (that @#^%&$*! of a boy) because he had been talking about me to the others and was laughing at me (He got his due, didn't he?). My mother – “Oh My God! How can you just hit someone like that? It doesn’t become a decent girl to be so violent! Next time please just come and tell me. I will talk to the child’s parents and your teacher and make sure nothing of that sort happens again. Always come and tell mummy. What were you thinking anyway? Trying to be a heroine, are you?”

Get the drift? Good. Here’s one more. Just to drive the point home.

Graduate College. Break between 1^st and 2^nd semester. I live in the girls’ hostel. My parents have come down to see me. My mother is dewy eyed at seeing her daughter so grown up and ready to order her food all by herself. She says, her voice shaking a little, with emotion, “Don’t ever try anything new without your parents. You are living alone now. There will be a lot of things you will be tempted to try. Like alcohol or smoking or drugs. Talk to us about it. Ok? Promise? Promise me!” “Yes mummy. I promise. May I order a mocktail for myself before dinner?” I ask, puppy-eyed. My mother nearly has an apoplectic seizure. “NO! Of course not! How dare you disrespect your parents this way? How did you just open your mouth and ask this of us? Mocktail, indeed! Your daughter is going to turn into a hopeless alcoholic!” (This to my father, who suffers from Selective Deafness Syndrome) “This would never have happened if we hadn’t let her stay all by herself. Her friends must have put her up to this. That’s it! I’ve had enough. I am moving here and she’s going to stay with me. Oh I will never be able to show my face in public ever again! What will people say? You will never talk about all this! Do you understand, young lady? Never! NEVER, you hear? Dispel such sickening thoughts from your mind. From now on, you will eat, drink and breathe only your studies. Pah!” “A mocktail is non-alcoholic, madam.” slips in the waiter. What remained of him afterward, is another story.

No wonder I have turned out to be the way I am.

I love you mummy!