Notes from an almost-empty-nester
I was reading this piece here on how the author thinks the festival of Karwa Chauth is regressive yet she fasts each year. Perhaps, she reasons in her article, the conditioning is so deep she cannot not keep the fast.
Continue reading “Does Free Will Really Exist?”
I don’t want to wear formals, announces H.
That’s how most of our festive days begin. We have this tussle each year, at every festival. I’ve been giving in to him slowly but surely, bending to his will, letting him have his way. We moved from Kurta pajamas, to short kurtas and trousers and then to a shirt with an Indian jacket and jeans. This year I don’t even have the mind-space to push for that.
I don’t regret it. Not much, at least. I know he’s getting older; he’s a teen and I’ve learnt to choose my battles.
‘Alright’, I tell him, ‘but change out of your shorts and vest’. Crumpled tees and shorts have been his uniform these past few Covid months. I haven’t much bothered. This was but a small trade-off for quiet mornings.
But he isn’t done. ‘Why must I change? ‘What’s wrong with these clothes? They’re clean and that’s what should matter,’ he challenges. He loves a good argument, this son of mine and I indulge him most often, but not today. The cook is on leave and a pile of chores beckon me from the kitchen.
‘This is why I hate festivals,’ he continues.
That gets my attention and stops me on the verge of my don’t-argue-just-go-and-change outburst.
It’s an almost compulsive thing with me, this need to make festivals happy and stress free. Paradoxically, the stress of being stress-free stresses me out.
That is one reason I’ve let go of many traditions. And that’s why H’s remark hits home.
I pull my gaze away from the kitchen, realise I’m frowning and straighten the frown. I will myself to relax as I prepare to gently wade into this sea of arguments.
N walks in holding up a bright orange tee shirt for H. ‘Remember, I gifted you this one? It’s perfect for today. Please please wear it.’
I sigh in relief and quickly push home. ‘Come on H’, I tell him. He gives a huge fake sigh but I know he’s coming around.
As I busy myself with the cooking, I hear them argue.
‘I won’t wear trousers.’
‘But you can’t wear these shorts.’
‘Okay, then I’ll wear my Eminem Tee shirt.’
‘Noooo!! Not on Rakshabandhan. Have you even heard his lyrics? He uses such bad words in his songs.
‘At least he has a message to convey. He’s not just mooning around like your One Direction.’
‘I don’t care. You’re not wearing that ugly black tee. Mamaaaa tell him, pleeease,’ N calls out to me.
I don’t respond. I don’t need to. As I stir the kheer on the stove and get out the dough for the puris, I know already that H will wear what she wants him to, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have his bit of fun. Just as I know N doesn’t really expect me to intervene when she calls out to me.
When I glance into their room I find them giggling together, playing tug-of-war with the unfortunate Eminem teeshirt.
Finally, they’re ready. Much fuss is made out of tying the rakhis. As per their own weird tradition H smears N’s forehead with the kumkum instead of making a neat little teeka. She’s used to it and stands still while I wipe it off and make a small round one instead. ‘I’ll take revenge,’, she says when it’s her turn. That freaks him out a bit. He takes eons to fix the clasp of her rakhi and ends with pushing an entire kaju roll into her mouth. She does the same and we’re done.
As I put away the puja plate I realise I forgot to ask them to cover their heads, as per tradition. I realise I miss doing things the traditional way. I miss the colourful kurta-pajamas, the chaniya cholis, the laddoos, the elaborately decorated puja thali and the sitting down cross-legged on the ground with a handkerchief on the head. I miss it all. I was wrong when I said I didn’t regret letting go of traditions. I do, at least some part of me does.
I want to tell the children: this is your culture, your heritage, your link to the past. Don’t let it go.
I hear them laughing and arguing and I hold back.
Instead, I tell myself, this is change, embrace it.
Image by minxutopia from Pixabay
The maid has just left. The house smells of Colin and Lizol – fresh, inviting. As I step out into the balcony, the sky is thick with clouds, the air redolent with the promise of rain. It’s a beautiful day and I feel ‘settled’ like I haven’t felt in a long time.
If you were here and we were having coffee together, I’d tell you I’d finally found peace in this new home of mine. Together we’d raise a cheer to that – you with your extra strong coffee and I with my ginger tea – each with our preferred ‘hot beverage’, as Sheldon would put it :-).
You’d smile at the Big Bang reference, relieved to see me well and truly out of the dumps just as I was happy to be out of them. I’d apologise for having been fretful and whiny over the last month but you’d brush that off with a wave of your hand. That’s what friends are for, aren’t they? you’d say and I’d agree wholeheartedly.
If we were having coffee together I’d tell you that life had definitely been looking up for me since we last got together. I’d tell you about this house which was slowly, surely turning into a home. It was only now that I was beginning to truly appreciate it.
I’d tell you about other friends who had dropped by in happy batches exclaiming over each new fixture, opening cupboards and peering inside with the ease of long friendship, suggesting reading nooks and writing corners. I’d tell you how they’d complimented my freshly arranged bookshelves, picking out books to borrow.
I’d wonder if perhaps it was their excitement that had endeared the home to me. Does this happen with you sometimes – that looking at something through someone else’s eyes changes your view of it? That a glum lonely space suddenly becomes warm and cosy? It echoes with the memory of love and laughter long after everyone has gone.
It is this memory that wraps itself around me like a comforting hug as I go about my day prompting me to open my heart and home to more friends. I stock up happy memories, collecting them like Shylock hoarded gold coins, chasing away the gloom of the past few months.
If we were having coffee together I’d tell you how I had been inhabiting the kitchen more often, finding pleasure in going back to some of my favourite recipes. I’d tell you of the time I’d delighted in laying out a full homemade ‘party’ meal despite my rather limited cooking skills.
Together we’d look outside my window and watch the rain that was now coming down in a gentle pitter-patter. We’d watch the sparrows sheltering in the trees and I’d point out my plants that were slowly coming back to life, sprouting new leaves, making a new beginning.
Just like me.
Things weren’t perfect, but then perfection is a mere dream, I’d muse. It isn’t, you’d correct me, it exists scattered in small moments like this one, you’d tell me and together we’d laugh at our philosophical ramblings as we drain our cups and head out to meet the rest of the day.
So tell me dear friend, how is life treating you? What would you share if we were having coffee together?
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I am participating in the #wordsmatter bloghop. I received this tag from Pooja Priyamvada who blogs at Second Thoughts First and I’m happy to pass on the tag to Rachna at Rachna Says. Do follow the #WordsMatter Blog Hop and prepare to be surprised!
I solemnly swear that all instances quoted in the piece below are absolutely true. No, really. It’s all true.
N was down with a terrible stomach ache, and I had just returned from the medical store. I stood in the lower basement, my thoughts on my girl, hoping she was doing okay in my absence and wishing the elevator would hurry up.
When it didn’t arrive for a while, I realised that one elevator was stuck on the sixth floor while the other was on the eleventh. I pressed the button again. Not that it was required or made any difference, but one does these things in moments of desperation.
Finally, the one on the sixth floor began to move. I relaxed. It reached the ground floor and stopped.
Really? Today, of all days?
I willed it to come down.
It didn’t.
After a long, lazy pause, the one on the eleventh floor began to creak its way down. It reached the ground floor and then… yeah, it stopped too.
I was almost stamping my feet in frustration and contemplating the stairs when it moved again and finally reached me.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just one instance of the elevator behaving weirdly with me.
It hates me!
There, I said it!
I know this sounds like the ramblings of a batty old woman, but it’s true. I know because this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
The first seeds of suspicion were sown way back during my working days in Mumbai. I was on an official visit to the Stock Exchange when, one day, the elevator decided to come to a standstill midway.
On a twentieth-something floor, no less.
It stood there, a smirk on its face (or so it seemed to me), enjoying my mounting panic. Mercifully, a colleague was with me, and together we sounded the alarm. After much hoo-ha, the doors were prised open, and we found ourselves stuck between two floors. Too high to climb up, too low to jump down.
It all looks so easy in the movies. In real life, however, you either need to be the really sporty kind or have a Spider-Man boyfriend to bail you out. Since I was neither, a tall stool was procured, and we were able to step down to freedom.
Then there was the more recent incident.
I had just stepped into the elevator when I spotted a lady rushing towards it. Before she could even motion to me to hold the doors, I was already reaching for the ‘keep door open’ button. I threw her a reassuring smile to let her know I was holding it for her.
Except the elevator had other plans.
Slowly, inexorably, the doors began to shut. No matter how hard I jabbed at the button, they continued closing. I even tried wedging my foot in, but the otherwise all-too-sensitive sensors pretended not to sense it at all.
Knowing my history with elevators, I had a feeling this one would squash my foot with wicked glee. I pulled back, just in time.
And then, right before my horrified eyes (and the lady’s very, very annoyed ones), the doors shut with a gentle, malicious click.
I could only imagine what it must have looked like to her. I had smiled reassuringly, pretended to hold the doors open and then shut the elevator in her face.
What kind of a mean person does that?
She now refuses to acknowledge me when we bump into each other, and my hopes of making friends in this new place have died a silent death.
But that’s not all.
Every time I’m in a hurry, I’m sure to find both elevators parked on the floors furthest from me. And when I try to summon them, I can almost hear them arguing.
‘You go.’
‘No, you go.’
‘I went last time.’
‘So what? You are just a floor away.’
‘I don’t care. It’s your turn.’
And so on.
Quite like H and N when I call them to do a chore.
If I hesitate for even a moment, or stop to pick up my bag, or pause to smile at someone, the elevator tries to squish me. Once, it actually carried away my stole. Carried it right into its evil jaws while I barely managed to save myself.
I tell you, it’s personal.
I have now taken to dashing in and diving out without giving it a chance to mess with me. Of course, this means I sometimes knock over unsuspecting people. And no matter how profusely I apologise or how earnestly I try to explain this strange vendetta, I end up looking stupid.
All the while, I can practically hear the elevator laughing its mean little laugh. And if I so much as turn to give it a nasty look in return, I only succeed in further damaging my credibility.
What? Did I hear you say that an elevator is an inanimate object and cannot have feelings?
Hah!
You, dear sir, have no idea.
I’m not crazy, okay?
The other day about half an hour after dinner H said, ‘I am hungry. Can I have a roti?’ The only emotion I felt at that question was annoyance.
It had been barely five minutes since I’d wiped down and cleared up the kitchen and the last thing I wanted to do was to pull out the entire roti-making paraphernalia and roll out one for him.
It’s another matter that I also dislike the idea of him eating anything half an hour after a meal only because he was in too much of a hurry to get back to whatever he was doing while having lunch.
Of course I can make a few spare ones but the thing is I hate/dread left over chapatis. I have no idea what to do with them. Oh I do have an idea, many ideas, actually, but most of them require either too much effort or some form of deep frying – both of which I am averse to.
Re-heating doesn’t make them palatable and the maid doesn’t want any. Cows and stray dogs are not so common around here, even if I could gather the courage to seek them out to feed them. And I do hate throwing food in the bin. So I’m pretty stuck, unless I resign myself to eating stale chapatis.
…I sometimes wonder – my grandmom and my mom. The number of people who would be around for lunch or dinner was often fluid. People would flow in and out all the time. Very often whoever visited at lunch/dinner time was asked to join in. And Boy! did they have appetites!
What’s worse, one could never ever, repeat, never ever, ask people how many chapatis they would eat. It would have set tongues wagging and become the worse kind of family folklore in the entire extended community as the epitome of bad manners. I can clearly imagine the whispers, ‘So and so asked so and so how many rotis will you eat.’ Yup, it would been quite the scandal. The person who had been thus humiliated would probably severe all relations with the family of that insolent woman.
In any case counting wouldn’t have really been required back then because rotis were supposed to be made and served hot and fluffy, as and when various members sat down to eat.
..that when my maternal grandfather (my mom’s uncle) would sit to eat and my mom, not really famous for her patience, would ask him how many more chapatis she should make for him, he would shake his head and reply with a rather vague and completely non-committal, ‘I’m eating.’
She had little patience with this tiresome tradition but was fortunate in that the trickle of random guests had all but died down by the time her generation took over. It was only occasionally that she had to chip in. I have to add here that this is her own uncle we’re talking about or else she wouldn’t have dared to voice that question. Also, my mom has been quite the revolutionary. She broke many traditions, which worked really well for us, easing the way ahead.
As the children are growing, specially H, their appetites vary from day to day. Sudden growth spurts make them sometimes more sometimes less hungry from one day to the next. And so either I’m stuck with stale rotis or I don’t have enough.
After thought: I’m seriously considering adopting a stray.