Category: Amma
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Mother. Daughter. Mother.
“Skipping time” Amma calls out to my prepubescent youngest child who is upstairs talking to a friend over Facetime. I am in the kitchen doing dishes, amused by the interaction. I hear the sound of jumping upstairs as Laddu counts and jumps a hundred times. She is out of breath but rushes proudly to her…
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Unsung Heroes: The Woman In My Life
“Vandhacha?” I text my sister. The message says delivered but there is no response. I put my phone down and walk around the house. I clear the sink, I grind the coconut, green chiles, curry leaves, and cumin. I check my phone every once in a while. It is when I am tempering cumin in…
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The Voice At The Other End Of The Line
The phone rings a few times before her voice comes on the line. Reassuring. Available. Just there for my taking. We exchange pleasantries. We talk about what we cooked, how we slept, minor aches and pains, the cost of medicines, the cost of a kilo of tomatoes. We talk of bank balances, siblings and children.…
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Simple joys
We step out in the darkness, a distant light reflecting off the puddle of water in the middle of our driveway. We skirt around it and walk leisurely out to the road. It is past nine in the evening. The lamp-posts in front of each home emits a dull glow. Fireflies wink in and…
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Adrift
I watch you as you bend to place something in your overnight bag for the umpteenth time. Your forehead is creased with lines. Laugh lines. Worry lines. Anxiety lines. Sad lines. The lines that tell me the story of your life. I stand by the stove stirring the boiling pot of water with specks of…
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Underappreciated and overwhelmed
I woke up to the sounds of Amma bustling in the kitchen. The dishwasher was being unloaded, the microwave humming and the cooker hissing in the background. Stretching lazily, I also heard sounds of one of the twins waking. Ignoring any temptation to snooze for a few more minutes, I jumped out of bed to…
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My everyday hero!
Watching and rewatching a slide show of pictures from my twin’s birthday party, I noticed my GMail Inbox tab had a (1) next to it indicating a new mail. Smiling, I checked to see a note from my good old friend saying “Amma rocks!!! You must write a piece only on her.” I was taken aback a…
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Arbitrary thoughts
In a precious few hours, my amma will be here. Laden with goodies for Kay and Cee and my siblings and I, she will step off the car a shy smile changing her face into something that will be etched in memory. For years I have longed to welcome amma home as paati. This will be yet another…