Mom

My Mother loves being home. She still labors under the delusion that my sister, dad and I haven't cut our teeth yet, and require constant supervision. Every moment she spends at work is fraught with the horrifying possibilities of the three of us wrecking the house by getting stains on the white walls of the living room (which she has forbidden us to touch!)/ wrinkling the couches/ leaving the geyser on and a host of other unforgivable misdeeds. She hurries home preparing for the worst, and heaves a sigh of relief as she enters her own unharmed little kingdom. The next day, she goes back to work and experiences the same cyclic anxieties. Hence, it was with a great deal of effort that we persuaded her to accept an invitation to be keynote speaker at a prestigious 2 day medical conference in Goa.

We managed to get her fluttering and protesting feebly (who would get us our meals/do the laundry?) into the car to drop her to the airport. We deposited her safe and sound at the terminal and watched as she joined the line to get her boarding pass. My mother is very old school, and when she does anything, it is methodically, carefully and always correctly. We watched with amusement as she ignored the impatient tapping of the feet of people standing behind her and methodically, carefully, correctly and unnecessarily wrote her name and address on each one of her hand baggage tags. She gave us a little regretful, i-can't-believe-i'm-doing-this hand wave before heading off to her departure gate. We got back into the car.

We felt a trifle sad at first, but that was nothing comparable to the subdued feeling of joy that FINALLY for a weekend we were FREE! We could order pizza without being reminded (correctly) that there was home food in the fridge; we could text and call our friends while eating, without being reminded (again correctly damnit!) that meal time was family time. The possibilities were endless! Why we might even rumple up the couch a little and who knows; Maybe even TOUCH the walls of the living room? (oh no unthinkable! she would come back and KNOW!) Thus with the myriad possibilities left open to us by the empty front seat, we got back home.

Saturday morning. We woke up and wondered what was wrong. We listened in vain for the muted sounds of our well oiled domestic machinery. Where was the low hum of the washing machine? The sizzle of hot bacon? The gentle pop of the toaster, the little whop of the dusting cloth and the crackle of the morning news in the living room? My sister and I looked at each in consternation for a moment and then remembered; Mom had gone to Goa! We got out of bed. Sunshine poured in through the windows, leering in, in disgust at the mass of blankets and crumpled pillowcases. Automatically we started folding everything neatly before Mom could come in to yell.

"Priyanka", Tara whispered. "Lets not do it today! Lets - lets go crazy!"
"You mean we should just leave our beds like this?!" I asked
"YES! Think about it. We're going to go to sleep again tonight. No one comes into our room but us. Who cares? Making beds is a silly, waste of time!"
"But mom.."
"She's not here! Thats the best part! She's coming back tomorrow. We'll make our beds tomorrow! Lets take a real HOLIDAY and go nuts!"

We shook hands and bobbed joyfully into the living room. We couldn't be bothered to make toast or breakfast and had cereal in cold milk as we spread out the newspaper to read. We lazed around agreeing that this was Life! Dad had gone to the clinic early in the morning for his rounds and finally came back at noon. We clamoured for pizza as he vainly tried to tell us that mom had left some food in the fridge.

"Home food?!" we scoffed! "On a holiday?!" TREASON! Dad, proved unsuspectingly firm.
"No! I don't want you kids to eat all that junk food. Tell me what you want for lunch and I'll cook us something" he said with all the savoir faire of a professional French chef.

Now my dad is just great. He's a good doctor, he's great at telling stories and flying toy helicopters and he can make the world's best omelettes. But that was the problem. In all my 22 years of experience overlapping with my sister's 19, he'd never cooked anything other than omelettes. We hastened to point this fact out to him in no uncertain terms!

"Hey, you kids don't know anything!" he said warmly. "Why when I was studying in Minnesota, I was the best cook in town. You should have seen what I could come up with. In fact! Infact, if I hadn't become a doctor, I could have got a job as a chef anywhere" he said dreamily. Rosy visions of tossing up concoctions by the bucketful obscured his vision.

We said nothing after that. What was there to say? When dad made his mind up about something, it required only an earthquake or Mom to make him change it. We watched as he hunted vainly for an apron.

"Now you kids just wait here" he said. "And I'll make something so good that you'll never be able to eat anything else again!"

My sister and I cleared out of the kitchen and sat disconsolately by the piano. We waited as we heard the banging of utensils in the kitchen. We listened to dad muttering about, "nobody keeping anything in the proper place" as he searched in vain for the utensils he needed. Suddenly, we heard a large crash, bang and a sharp invective. We rushed to the kitchen, but dad slammed the door and told us everything was just fine and to keep away until he was ready. "Too many cooks" he said darkly and went back.

Finally after being in the kitchen for more than 2 hours, we smelt the appetizing odour of pav bhaji. Dad triumphantly brought a huge bowl of bhaji to the table and in a short time, it was over. Dad hardly ate anything but watched us empty our plates with a large benevolent smile on his face. My sister and I were very impressed! We promised dad we would never doubt him again. We went to the kitchen to clear our plates.

"Traitor" my sister hissed!
I looked in the direction of where she was pointing. There sticking out of the dustbin was part of a large box which said "Ready to eat Pav Bhaji. Add 2 cups of water, leave in the microwave for 10 minute..."

Needless to say we had pizza in the night.

Sunday passed uneventfully and quietly. Dad buried himself in his books to hide his embarrassment over the previous day. In the evening my sister and I made a half hearted attempt to get the house back in order before Mom came home in the night. By the time we had to go to the airport, we gave it up for a bad job. With trepidation we picked Mom up. No sooner had she got into the car than we were regaled with questions about if the house was still standing, did we do the laundry, did we wash the dishes..." "Yes, yes" my sister and I said to everything uneasily more out of habit than anything else. Dad remained silent. His ears were a bright red and we knew he was dreading us telling mom about the cooking fiasco.

Well, Mom entered the house. She said nothing. But in an hour the house was exactly as if she had never left it. We woke up Monday morning to go to college. The washing machine was running. We heard the pop of golden toast, the sizzle of bacon, the morning news. God was in His Heaven. All was right with the world.