To Amma, with love!

It's not often that you pause from a reading and resort to some other work just to divert your thoughts that made your eyes well up with tears- of fear and memory. As I am writing this blog post, I am doing the same- distracting myself. 

 I can pick so many stories( mostly told and read to me) from my childhood that have pricked ( stabbed?) my emotions.
  Once it happened while I was in my fifth grade. The teacher was reading out a story from our English core text. The story about a school boy returning home to find a crowd of people gathered around his home.
His mother was no more.

 It was sheer coincidence that the story was narrated during the last period of the day, just when we were all set to pack our bags and leave for home.

 Considering my mother is a working woman and we (sis and me) never expected anyone to greet us at four o'clock in the evening with chai and samosas, I don't know why I related so much to the story. I remember holding back the tears from sliding down my cheeks, lest my classmates ( who didn't show the slightest degree of pain ) would  find the whole situation 'out of place'. The story of the school boy didn't end there. The subsequent days in the life of the schoolboy were detailed deeply.
I listened, without missing a word, with a heavy heart. 

The thought of losing my mother occupied a very large part of my childhood fear.

 Now, as we (amma and me) have grown old (and ruthless), we joke about death!

Today, another piece of writing reminded me of amma and brought memories of her in the kitchen. It reminded me of the fights we have had in the kitchen( I always pretend to be the best chef the culinary world is yet to discover, not paying attention to the tricks and tips she tries to give);  how she persuades me into having another piping hot dosa or an appam straight from the tawa.

Memories -of her frying up those big pieces of fish when I come back food-starved from hostel, and the many days when she had woken up before the crack of dawn to pack up a meal as I left for a place far away -came gushing forth.

Sometimes, all it takes is one simple dish (the sight, the aroma or even the mere thought of it)- to bring a flood of memories from a time slipped off your hands.