The other day i was really late to office....mummy was angry as usual coz i didn’t do my pranayaam, which according to her is the best exercise........and to top it she wanted me to eat something and go.....i was thinking then.....why doesn’t she realize i have to go to in that crammed bus and if i reach late i wont be getting a seat.....but no...nothing doing...i had to eat something before i step out......the milk had never been hotter than it was that day, and the parantha burnt my tongue.....in a fit of rage i gobbled the stuff and ran out of the house with a crude bye...i was totally irritated….my thoughts only revolving around whether I would be successful in getting my prized possession…a seat in the 8 o’clock BEST bus……hurrying and scurrying I finally reached and almost cried out with joy seeing an empty ladies seat waiting for me….on this point I would just digress a little as you may feel that the stated expression of joy is a hyperbole…I would just retort to it saying, boss you have to see it to believe it…imagine….a bus filled with people double its capacity…..people falling over each other…u get the picture??...i hope u do as I don’t intend to go to the details….. .digression ends….
As always I found myself staring out of the bus window….i wonder at times what is it that I, or anyone for that matter, always wants to see outside…..the same morning or evening time….the same old road…..the same shops…..the same 3 temples that come on the way…..its become a part of the routine…..so aimless….sometimes the mechanical lifestyle we lead scares me…then again I justify that this is the time we spend in unconscious introspection……
But nevertheless, there I was, staring out that day too…..as usual there was a bad traffic jam…and our bus was stalled….mumbai traffic jams…..if u haven’t been into one already, its alarming…..coz if its true, you are not staying in Mumbai…..and then there are the ‘morning traffic jam effects’ as I term them……primary of these include anxious looks at watches…..cursing the government for such a bad infrastructure….people in a dilemma whether to get down from the bus and walk it down or wait for the jam to clear…..and then there are people fast asleep oblivious to it all…..good for them…..
So after observing the said ‘morning traffic jam effects’ my gaze wandered outside……we were stalled in an area overlooking a slum…..I saw a small girl….innocent and sweet faced…..playing in the mud……she seemed so engrossed….seemed to be analyzing the pebbles and placing them carefully to form a pattern…..her concentration was interrupted by a lady….her mother possibly…..she definitely didn’t like her daughter adorning herself with the mud….as she yanked the girl up by her hand and dragged her to their hut….she washed her hands and got a plate having a small bhakri and started feeding the girl who was animatedly trying to explain to her about the pebbles she had seen….
It was a pretty picture really…my heart went out to the mother who seemed to be relishing her daughters talks while she nibbled on the bhakri she was feeding her….I started thinking….the mother didn’t need to listen to all that baby talk, let alone react to it….rolling her eyes in amazement….smiling coyly….and sometimes just listening intently…according to the kid’s expressions….my heart was filled with admiration for her…..and suddenly the events of that morning ran through my head….me waking up with a cross face…..mumbling why didn’t my mom wake me up earlier….ignoring her comments on my getting up late….and fuming when she asked me to have breakfast….not realizing she needn’t do all this pampering for me at all…..her stopping this mundane running around with me in the mornings would affect no one else but me…..and what was she rewarded with for all this…a snappy ‘bye’…
I hated myself that moment…..its not that I don’t love my mom…..but is that enough?…is the occasional love showering a way to show my appreciation….I know she never expects anything from me….and maybe this knowledge is the reason I always take my mom for granted….then again I debated with myself that come on….she’s my mom….if I don’t vent out my frustrations in front of her, where else would I? But I realized that if she could do unnecessary things only for my sake…time and again…..she is not entitled at all to the kind of momentary rebuke and gruffness that I subject her to so many times……she is human….she may be wrong at times….but not eligible, even then, to brusque behavior….. a fact that i found very hard to digest, but seemed to fit in just right …... I looked back at the mother daughter duo…they were having a ball…my feelings were reinforced…...suddenly the bus started moving…..and I got out of my reverie….and then…I called up my mom…..
