Meeting with Mother

 

What could possibly be more beautiful than a picture of a mother with her child? Probably thousands of artists and painters have depicted this beauty in their paintings, sketches and sculptures over past few centuries. Many more poets and writers have glorified this beautiful bond in their literary works as well. I may not be in the league of those extra ordinary artists or writers, but no harm in telling yet another story of a mother and child meet. Only caveat being, the child in this story was actually a bit old to be called a child. He was a software engineer who had freshly started his career.

 

My mother normally avoids all kinds of official tours and travels. But once she had an opportunity to travel to Chennai for an inspection, and she gladly accepted it. The main reason being I was working in Chennai on my first job, and the first time in my life my mother had spent more than 2 months without seeing me. My mother was also like most of the Indian moms, who can be characterized by 3 main ambitions. Firstly their kids should be overfed, secondly their kids should always be focused on academics. And lastly, the kids should be neat. And when an Indian mom expects her son to be neat, she means not just the son, but the son’s hairstyle, son’s clothes, son’s room, son’s roommates & friends – everything related to the son should be neat!

I told my roommate Rahul to prepare for my mom’s visit. “We should clean the room as much as possible” I told him.

Rahul replied “That’s not enough dude. I work in quality assurance. We need to get our cleaning to be certified properly”

I was puzzled “Do you want to call your QA team leads to come and review the cleanliness?”

Rahul was dismissive “No dude. You are not getting the point at all. My intrinsic knowledge of human psychology, especially the psychology of female human beings, demands a different action”

“And what is that?” I asked.

Rahul triumphantly declared his plan “We need help of a girl. I will ask Tejaswini to come and inspect the apartment after we have done the cleaning. We guys can never understand how moms try to inspect cleanliness.”

It turned out to be a great plan. She gave us valuable insights. For example, we had cleaned the floors, but only the visible parts. Tejaswini suggested that we should clean under the beds, chairs & tables as well. Also we thought just having a clean bed cover means a clean bed, she told us we need to have clean bed sheets and clean pillow covers too. I thanked her for her expert opinion and resumed our cleaning. During the course of cleaning I happened to see a mirror, it made me realize that I never had a hair-cut ever since I left my hometown. My mom was sure to get shocked at my hairstyle. So I ventured to a hair-cutting saloon next morning.

The haircut went fine, the trouble started afterwards. I had handed over a 20 Rupees note to the shop owner, and he gave me a reply with some strange expression. He wasn’t looking very happy. I assumed I was an early morning customer and he didn’t have change. But after a while I realized he was telling me to pay more. I was a bit surprised, a haircut in my hometown used to cost only 5 Rupees. I didn’t imagine it cost more than 20 here. Anyway I gave him the other 20 Rupees note I had. And then to my utter shock, the shop owner pointed me towards a board on the wall. It said hair-cuts – Rupees 50 only! How can a haircut for 50 Rupees be “only” I wondered. Anyway, I was out of money, and had to call Rahul for help. This turned out to be a big trouble, as Rahul was probably on the phone with Preeti or Tejaswini. I was getting a busy tone. And remember, this was 2004, there was no concept of call waiting alert on mobile phones those days. So Rahul was happily chatting on the phone completely unaware of the fact I was being held as a ‘mortgage security’ in the shop for the remaining 10 Rupees! Finally I was able to get him on the phone after an hour’s wait and humiliation. I asked him to rush to the shop immediately.

He was puzzled “I don’t get it. You want me to rush to the hair cutting saloon as soon as possible? But why? And what the hell are you doing there?”

I was impatient by now “Don’t you know my mom is coming tomorrow?” I shouted.

Rahul sighed “I get it now, you are scared that she will scold you if I don’t get a hair-cut too. I vaguely remember that a lot of your friends at college were terrified of your mom, but I didn’t realize the situation is so scary”

I got more irritated with his conclusion “Shut up! I don’t need you to get a hair-cut. Just come with some money. I exhausted mine”

Rahul still didn’t stop getting curious “I knew Chennai saloons are expensive. But you spent your entire month’s salary on a hair-cut? What kind of hair cut are you getting?” Finally after a lot of shouting & yelling he was able to comprehend the situation and came to my help.

Soon the eventful evening arrived. I met my mother at the airport. She sighed sadly and remarked that I had lost weight. She didn’t know that I had been eating 2 plates of breakfast for the last 8 days. Also I was drinking a glass of mango shake (don’t forget mango is a high calorie fruit) after every lunch and dinner these days. I wondered what she would have said if I wasn’t overfeeding myself for the past 8 days. Shortly thereafter, we reached our apartment. On the first appearance, it looked as if I entered a different apartment by mistake. It was way too organized and neat. Some unknown guy was sitting in the living room couch, reading a book on Java fundamentals. He introduced himself as Raja. As we ventured in we saw another guy coming out of the toilet with a book in hand. I noticed the book was on aptitude questions for management entrance tests. He introduced himself as Deepak. Clearly my mother was very impressed to see my roommates being such academically focused. She started discussing with them on their planned career paths as Java Architect and MBA executive respectively. Meanwhile I hurried inside the bedroom.

“Who are these guys” I asked Rahul.

“Oh these guys are from my project. The whole floor teases them as bookworms. Thought of getting them here to give a serious academic atmosphere to your mom” he grinned.

I thanked him, and looked around. The bedroom looked completely different. Both the beds were having gorgeous bed covers. Even there was a flower vase at the corner window.

Rahul saw my bewildered look “looks fabulous, isn’t it? Borrowed these from Tejaswini and her roommates” he declared proudly.

“Oh! your room is so well decorated” my mom exclaimed stepping inside the room.

I tried to be modest “well its nothing. Just trying to keep it tidy & habitable”

“But did you have to get up from your studies to go to the airport?” she remarked.

I was surprised. I hadn’t studied anything ever since my final semester at college. Why such an accusation? Soon I realized the answer. One corner of my bed had a notebook and pen, along with a book of Unix programming flipped open. It appeared I just got up from my studies of unix programming and had hurried to the airport. I looked at Rahul. I noticed he too was holding a very thick book and pretending to read it. I peeped closely and realized he was holding a ‘Ramayana’ written in Tamil!

“Why are you reading the Ramayana?” I whispered.

Rahul shrugged “What to do… I realized at the last minute that I have only one book, the Unix one which I kept on your bed. So what options did I have to look studious?”

“But it is a Tamil book!” I whispered tensely

Rahul hissed back “I borrowed it from the landlord. What were you expecting from our Tamil landlord? A Marathi book maybe? Or perhaps a Bengali book?”

“But what if my mom notices? She knows you are from Delhi…”

“Make up some story man… tell her I was born & brought up here in my childhood….”

But nothing of the sort happened. My mother was too happy to observe these minute details. Her previous impression of myself was a lazy boy, who always overslept, never studied neither kept the room tidy. All these despite being under her strict surveillance. And now here I was in an independent lifestyle, far from my mom’s surveillance, and yet I was so organized and so focused. She was beaming with happiness “see, the responsibility of job has changed you so much, even you have become more responsible in your lifestyle” she remarked.

I just nodded. Soon she left for her official guest house.  I accompanied her for dinner and returned to my apartment. The next evening she left Chennai after her inspection. I was happy to have met her after 2 months, even though it was just for a day. But I was happier that she left Chennai with the satisfaction of seeing me in a “responsible” and “presentable” frame. Over the course of next few years I had disclosed the fact the room was “arranged” to look tidy. But till date she doesn’t know that the “academic roommates” were also arranged along with other items. And she still believes Rahul was the most academic minded guy, after all he was reading the thickest book with utmost focus. I still wonder how she would have reacted had she realized that Rahul was reading a Ramayana written in Tamil. But anyway, all is well that ends well. To quote my buddy Rahul ‘Meeting Mom in Madras’ was a ‘Memorable Mega-success’.