Sweet Nothings

You’d think with all the free time she now has, mom would do something constructive – like, say, exercise and lose the flab she gained while warming a swivel chair for eight hours a day the last 13 months? Or maybe clean the gunk behind the refrigerator, wipe the ceiling fans, or at the very least, remove the hair on her legs instead of hiding them under jeans?

But our domestic diva, clearly, has other priorities. She feels she has to somehow make up for all the shopping she missed, all the talk shows she couldn't watch, all the blogs she couldn’t read and all the baking she put on a backburner.

That’s right; mom has recommenced baking with a vengeance. On any given afternoon, the house is redolent with the aroma of pumpkin pie spice, crumbly raspberry bars, melt-in-your-mouth cranberry scones, chewy chocolate chip cookies, etc.

While stirring a pot of caramel sauce with one hand, mom might crack eggs with the other or scratch her head to estimate 1/8 of a teaspoon. Not for her the Rachel Ray method of eye-balling ingredients and randomly throwing things in a bowl, giggling all the while. This woman takes her craft much too seriously and measures out ingredients with drug dealer precision.

“What is half of two-thirds?” she’ll ask dad, when he’s in the middle of writing codes or on a conference call halfway around the world. Unaware of the intricacies of baking, dad will spit out the exact figure, leaving mom to wonder how she could possibly measure light corn syrup in decimal points.

With all the delish decadence emanating from the kitchen, you’d think the family would revel in mom's confectionery creations. “But I want pink ice cream,” Kuki will whine, when presented with a choice of creamy custard or almond biscotti for an afternoon snack. “I’ll take it later,” dad will diplomatically say - his standard phrase for refusal.

Ingrates! One of these days, when the family asks her what’s for dinner, mom will be very tempted to say, “Eat cake instead!”

SAHM* I Am

At about 8:35 a.m. yesterday, mom was granted deliverance.

She was released from her corporate cage and thanked for the last 13 months of hard labor. The security guard handed her a stack of papers and she was wished well.

As the double doors closed behind her, mom emerged into the sunshine and shielded her eyes from the sudden glare. She blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the green grass, the swaying trees, the scattered sprinklers and the chirping birds.

In the distance, she heard speeding cars. Men and women wearing business suits and dour expressions, their shoulders sagging with the weight of laptop cases and sheaves of papers, filed past her.

Mom turned her face heavenward and closed her eyes, savoring the warm rays of the sun on her pale, mottled skin. She breathed in the crisp morning air that smelled of freshly cut grass and exhaust fumes.

In a daze, mom made her way toward the parking lot. As she spotted her car, she broke into a sprint. The hairclip holding her hair came undone and her ponytail spilled onto her shoulders. Shaking her hair loose, mom's face broke into a wide grin and she ran through the parking lot, shouting, “Glory, Hallelujah!”

She was free.

*Stay At Home Mom

Fabric of Our Lives

Was your Diwali a happy one? I only ask because mine could’ve been happier.

While mom and the children caught up with friends at a potluck, I spent Saturday night alone, watching an indisposed dad yawning and picking his nose while watching ESPN.

Mom’s idea of celebrating Diwali, or any other festival for that matter, is to have somebody else do all the prep. work. As there were no grandmas around this time of year, she took it easy and just turned on all the interior and exterior house lights and wished everybody a happy Diwali.

“But who is Diwali?” asked a bewildered Kuki, who associates “happy” only with birthdays. “Is it a boy or a girl? And why is there no cake?”

Leaping on the chance to impart some culture, mom solemnly sat the children down to narrate an abridged version of the Ramayana. But before she got to the part about Kaikeyi throwing a fit, the kids wandered off and had to be threatened with cabbage kootu for dinner, instead of pizza, if they did not stand still and look pious while she lit the lamp.

Growing up, the only festival mom would look forward to with glee was Saraswati puja. It was a special day of the year because it was the only day her mother would not hound her to bury her nose in her books every waking moment of the day. At all other times, grandma would yell, “Padi; Padi; Study; Study!” from the kitchen, as mom sat with an open book and doodled her and her latest crush’s name on a page, crossing common letters off while softly chanting, “Love; Like; Hate; Adore ....”

The main reason Diwali appealed to her was neither the sweets nor the fireworks nor time off from school, but rather, new clothes.

New clothes were practically events during mom’s formative years – they were considered treats that were doled out only on special occasions. Bought or stitched weeks in advance, their labels permanently stained with dots of haldi-kumkum, new clothes required divine benediction before and immediately after donning.

Old clothes, on the other hand, were never discarded. They were worn until they faded, were outgrown or ripped beyond repair. The outfits were then passed on to younger, shorter, thinner cousins or recycled as pillowcases. As a second to last resort, they were offered to the servant. And if the servant rejected them, as she often did, she was dubbed as arrogant and the clothes, as a final resort, were turned into rags to dust the furniture or swab the floor.

These days, new clothes barely register a blip on my human's excitement radar screen. Outfits have become as ordinary as ice cream in the freezer, as disposable as Styrofoam plates tossed away at parties. Unused and gently used clothes are stored for a few years out of compunction, before they too are discarded.

Mom's wedding trousseau, however, remains intact.

Like Diwali and other festivities, the saris are briefly aired once a year and then stored away, to be dragged out of hidden recesses only on special occasions - like velvety, wispy memories.

Guys and Gals Gone Wild

You usually know what a gathering is going to be like when you view the guest list.

For instance, if A is invited, you know the party will involve dancing. With B around, who knows, even the rasam might be spiked. C will regale the crowd with his antics. D’s eyes will dart around the house, summing up your latest purchases. E will start yawning even before dinner is served. F will never compliment the hostess on the food. G will sail in late, air-kiss her friend du jour and leave early. H will not make eye contact with you or admit he reads your blog. I and J will flaunt their wardrobes, while K will make furtive glances at your chest as he talks to you.

So, when mom received an invite for an adult birthday party recently that included all the above guests and then some, she immediately accepted, knowing that the evening would invariably invoke an ode to Bacchus - and there’s nothing more entertaining for a non-drinker (at least for the first five minutes) than to watch normally sensible people get plastered and completely shed their inhibitions.

“Please be there by 7 p.m.,” the hostess had requested. In keeping with their desi roots and sense of timing, some guests were still streaming in at 9 p.m.

The patio party was just warming up as mom arrived, a mere hour late. It was a beautiful, starry night, the kind of night that makes you forget the summer heat and the scorpions, and be grateful that you don't live in some frigid city on the east coast, where the guests would be huddled inside with the heat on, while 25 raucous kids would be thundering upstairs, causing the chandeliers downstairs to rattle.

This time, while the kids stayed inside and undid all the cleaning done just before the party started, the adults gathered outside, sipping on sangria and catching up with certain people they hadn’t bothered to keep in touch with the last eight months or more.

The party began in earnest once the sets of visiting parents from India had eaten and left. Bellies were sated with Jamaican rice and spicy chicken and bladders threatened to explode with the booze. Bottles of hard liquor were poured down parched throats, Kajra re almost shattered eardrums and body parts jiggled in time to the music.

Maybe a hectic week of organizing and attending Navrathri functions finally took its toll on the women. Maybe it was the fact that 40th birthday bashes roll around only once. It could’ve even been the trifle pudding ... whatever the catalyst was, some of the invitees proceeded to let their hair and guards down, much to the amusement of the sober spectators watching from the sidelines.

The host was thrown into the pool, and in a show of spirited camaraderie, his male friends joined him. An attempt was made to throw the hostess into the pool, but her thoughtful girlfriends, conjuring up visions of a soaked Mandakini in Ram Teri Ganga Maili or a wet Raveena in Tip Tip Barsa Paani, intervened on her behalf.

The party progressed through the night and the alcohol consumption showed no signs of slackening. Birthday cake was smashed in people’s faces, leading certain impressionable minds to ask mom difficult questions, such as, “Why is that aunty covered in frosting? And why is that uncle licking her face?”

Ah, well ... 10 years from now, at the host's 50th bash, mom knows the tables will be turned and she'll probably be looking to her kids for enlightenment.

Until then, cheers everybody!

Pining for the Pater

If you ask me, mom’s been doing really well the last 26 days and 25 nights without dad.

In all the years they’ve been together, nitpicking on various issues, such as the nutritive value of brown bread over white bread and the look of eggshell over semi-gloss house paint, this is the first time the humans have been apart this long.

Dad’s away in the motherland, working. Or, as mom puts it, “I'm here all alone with the kids, while he's enjoying himself over there.”

Despite dad’s assertions that he misses the family and cannot wait to get back, mom imagines him tucking into choice Indian food every day while she makes Subway runs with hungry kids in the car. She’s also concerned that he might be surrounded by nubile, doe-eyed southern Indian women at work, the kind who can talk intelligibly about coding, interfaces and applications and make killer filter coffee.

“My friend mentioned that the women on the second floor are really pretty,” she e-mailed dad, as soon as he landed. “Is that where your cubicle is? And I’ve heard all the Mangalorean girls there look like Aishwarya Rai. Is that true?”

“No,” responded dad quickly, with the perspicacity of a husband who has reaped the disastrous consequences of failing one too many trick questions in the past.

Despite mom’s vain attempts to don the “fun” parent’s hat while dad’s away, the children see right through her façade.

“I want my Appa,” pouts Kuki, when mom refuses to cave in to demands of Popsicle for breakfast.

“Appa would know how to fix it,” observes Anu, as he stands aside and watches mom struggle, with a clothespin on her nose, to fix the toilet handle that he managed to pull out just after he egested undigested matter. “Appa can also help me with my math homework.”

Late last night, when the kids were finally in bed, and mom had finished reading the day’s newspaper, she found dad online for a rare moment.

She instantly messaged him.

“How are you doing?” she typed. “Is your project wrapping up? You must be so exhausted. You’ve been away too long.”

As dad basked in the warm glow of spousal love and concern, mom continued, “Can you come home early? I’m not sure I can manage for much longer without you. I’ve been thinking about you all day."

“Really?” asked dad, still basking.

“Yes,” continued mom. “Hurry back! I really need you ... the toilet’s broken!”