Last Sunday morning, after making the public announcement that everyone was to fend for their breakfast on their own, I found myself happily free.
Continue reading “Of painting nails and learning to focus”Of painting nails and learning to focus
Growing up together
A gentle breeze ruffles my hair as I sit on a small cement platform in the grounds of my apartment complex. I watch N jogging, headphones in place her ponytail swinging from side to side.
It’s 10pm and we’re the only two people around. It’s quiet, apart from a few sounds that drift down from the flats above and the rhythmic tap tap tap of N’s feet.
I glance at her as she goes up and down the short track and I’m conscious of a feeling of impatience. I want her to finish her jog and go back, back to her books.
Continue reading “Growing up together”Thursday mornings
It’s after 10 pm. The children have finally settled down in their rooms wrapping up their studies, their TV time and their million arguments.
I open my book for few minutes of reading before I turn in for the day.
The phone pings. I glance at it and find a message from my sister-in-law, S. I know what it says and am already smiling as I open it. ‘Come over tomorrow’, says the message. ‘Sure’ I write back. And that’s that.
Next morning I make my way to her house a few kms away. She’s back from yoga, and has tea bubbling on the stove. The BIL, a runner, is back too and is wrapping up his running routine with (sometimes seriously weird) stretching exercises.
I hover in the kitchen, almost as familiar as my own, pouring myself a glass of water, setting out the tray and cups or sometimes, just chatting. We carry the tea to the living room and soon we’re settled on the large teal sofa, curled up with mugs in hand.
Somedays we walk down to a roadside eatery for a breakfast of poha and misal, somedays we order in while other days we settle for eggs and bread.
And we talk. Of the world, of China, of India and of Kashmir, of work and its challenges, of running a home with the husband away, and of children, of course children — my nascent teens her almost adult one.
We laugh together. A lot. About random things. His obsession with running, her annoyance of it; his love for drug-cartel movies, her disinterest in all things television; his crazy relatives, her equally mad ones. All our collective craziness, our eccentricities and our quirks are brought out, examined and laughed at.
That was our morning schedule every Thursday. I don’t quite remember when we set it up but no matter how busy we were, how packed a day we had ahead, those mornings were sacrosanct; reserved for our breakfast meets.
Thursday mornings became our routine escape from routine. They were my lifeline through some of the most trying times.
We resumed them, rather reluctantly, over the last week or so. Now, however, as both of them ride the Covid wave, quarantined at home, Thursday isn’t the same.
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Growing Up
I wait outside the registration room and I watch H as he stands in the queue. He looks uncertain, but not scared. I watch as his turn comes, he signs up, picks up his ID card and walks out to me.
‘There. Done,’ he says with a grin, ‘You can go now. Or you can stay for the opening ceremony.’
I am here to drop him off for a mock UN session. We have travelled half way across the city for this annual event that brings together school children to represent various countries discussing a particular topic.
The instructions and timings are a little vague and H doesn’t know a soul here. That worries me. All through the forty-five minute drive I’ve been talking to him, explaining, cautioning, making sure he has the phone with him. Will he feel lost, lonely, scared? I wonder.
‘Don’t worry ma,’ he says reading my thoughts, ‘I’ll be fine.’ I look at him, taller than me already, in his formal suit, the ID card around his neck making him look oddly grown up, professional almost. To an outsider.
To me he’s just a 13-year-old. A goofy absentminded 13-year-old.
Unbidden, a memory comes to me, that of 6-year-old H, taking his first steps into Big School, bravely trying not to cry, walking away without a backward glance.
I look at him again. Try as I might, I see no traces of the scared 6-year-old. All I see is a young boy, chattering away excitedly. ‘I wish they’d have given me a more important country to represent. Philippines is just so sidey. China would have been good or the US or even India,’ he complains, ‘Next time we’ll register earlier.’
Nope, no traces of the six-year-old.
With an effort I make myself separate the two images.
‘Oh boy!’ he exclaims examining the programme for the day, ‘they have Breakfast after the Opening Ceremony. Last year I had three glasses of hot chocolate. I hope they have it this time too.’ The six-year-old is back again!
I can’t help but laugh, glad the younger version is still in there somewhere under the suit and the tie even as the teen tries to take over.
Mornings #SOL
6.15, says the kitchen clock. The sun is just lighting up the skies. I slide some butter on the hot pan, the sizzle sounding loud in the early morning quiet. I put in slices of bread quietening the sizzle, then turn the flame down and head off to wake the children.
I find H sleeping on his stomach, head twisted upwards at an awkward angle, a thin sheet barely covering him, the fan on full blast. I reach out and decrease the fan speed then call out to him. He doesn’t stir. I give him a gentle shake, trying to reach him through the swathes of sleep. He nods finally, as I tell him he has five more minutes.
This five minute warning, I have found, helps ease the children to start the day. I like it too. I hate dragging them out of bed, specially on cold winter mornings or on rainy overcast days. Mondays are the worst, specially exam Mondays, like today.
He’s a night owl, this one, lying awake late, then waking up to lethargic mornings, often begging for an extra minute after the five-minute buffer.
In her room, N lies invisible among the folds of a thick comforter, the fan switched off. She stirs as I call her, gets her head out then silently points to her cheek, eyes still shut. I give her a kiss. She turns her head and points to the other one for another kiss – our own private little ritual. Then she snuggles down for the extra five minutes. Mornings are easier for her specially if she has a ‘good’ day lined up.
I marvel at how different they are.
I smile remembering how passionately we read Linda Goodman back during college, how confidently we allotted character traits to people we barely new. ‘Ooh she’s a Scorpio, beware’. ‘Oh he’s an Arian, bound to be flighty’. Judgement came only too easily.
How ridiculous it seems now! How can people born over thirty days have the same traits when these two, born a few minutes apart, are chalk and cheese? How drastically did the planet alignment shift in those two minutes to get me two such varied ones?
Interesting subject of study for an astrologer, I muse flipping the bread, and tipping the egg on to it on the pan.
I glance at the clock again. Five minutes are up. I walk to each of their rooms in turn, checking on them, calling out again, trying to inject a sternness in my voice this time, a sternness I don’t really feel but there’s no time for mush now.
Another day beckons.
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