Cupid never had a chance in their messy, parental-restricted love story
Karishma Jha, a twenty-one-year-old recent graduate with the world at her feet if only she chose to face it. Plagued with the worries of the future and yet healing from the scar...
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It was the weekend and it was raining cats and dogs. My mood reflected the weather.
No matter how much it was shoved down my throat that cloudy and rainy weather was aesthetic and cathartic, looking at a dark sky always brought me down. I needed that clear blue sky with white patches of cloud to stare at and daydream. And if the clouds were drifting, I could easily spend an hour on my balcony. This weather was blah.
My mother felt the same. It had been raining for the past few days, so a lot of clothes had gathered. Our living room resembled a Dhobi ghat with clothes hanging all over the furniture.
I was given a pile of damp clothes to be hung on the headboards of the beds. As soon as I entered the bedroom, an unexpected noise of fluttering grabbed my attention. I looked all around trying to find the source. The fan was off, so it could not be that.
A cold drift had me looking out the window. It was open and a pigeon fluttered near the window ledge. I cursed aloud. I had forgotten to shut the window and if the pigeon managed to enter the room, my mother would get a whole week's of material to scold me about. The last time one entered the room, it had shat on the bed.
I quickly dropped the pile of clothes on the bed and rushed to shoo it away. It took a few tries, this one was more persistent than usual. Finally, it flew away and I closed the window with a loud thud. Crisis averted.
"Karishma." My mother cried from behind. Now what did I do? I turned around to face her. She picked up the pile of clothes that I had dropped on the bed earlier. I winced at the sight of a wet patch on the bed.
"Ma, but-" I tried to explain but she shut me up quickly with a raised hand.
"No, enough. I had enough of you. Twenty-one years old and not a single chore you can do properly. You sit like a new bride while I will work like a slave."
Following that verbal thrash down, my every attempt to help her was thwarted with a stink eye. After I offered to make tea and she reminded me that I had burnt her vessel the last time, I went to the balcony for a breath of fresh air. I took my hair out of its tight bun and ran my fingers through my scalp. The seemingly small taunts and comments would keep me awake at night if I did not shake them off soon enough. Somedays it felt I would be asked to pay rent to stay with my own family.
My mother was a perfectionist while I was a bonafide butterfinger. We had known each other for twenty-one years, she was yet to get used to me and I was yet to get used to her.
One modification on her end that would solve a lot of conflict was the way she asked for help. Either it had the vaguest instructions ever or it came with an overdose of insult. 'I need you to get a melon from the market' worked better than 'When you were eight you dropped the melon on the road so you better not repeat that.' I have to suffer because of her trust issues.
Just then my dad walked in the main door announcing that he had bought hot samosas. I went to the kitchen to get some plates. I gave one to my dad and one to my mother. She took it from me without a word of thank you.
