The day I felt like Jaswinder Kaur ….

Three people… three minutes …and the same question…. Don’t you blog anymore? My blogger mind had got the much needed attention… so here it goes again… 

6am: Saturday morning…. It had been a while since I had woken up so early on a holiday. Strolled into the kitchen to catch two surprised pair of eyes staring at me… I knew a sarcastic comment which goes something like this ‘Are we dreaming’ was to follow, so I quickly made my exit. But it was too late. The comment was fired at me with the expertise which only Rima Lagu from the sitcom ‘Tu tu main main’ possessed….what followed was even more shocking…..dad said that his daughter had woken up to help mom with the chapathis….Dad had thrown a googly at me ….half expecting me to be stumped.

But I braved it… I said I didn’t mind volunteering. My mom looked at me as though she was just about to cry…. Still can’t figure out if it was the joy of seeing her daughter helping her with the chores or the thought of having to digest the chapathis cooked by me that was the cause of the emotion.

It had been exactly 10 years since I had tried to master the roti making art…. Back in my childhood I think I had proved my worth at making sri lanka, chile and even china. Anyway I was surprised that this time the near perfect circles were not difficult to make…but still mom was hard to please. Comments like ‘too fat’, ‘too thin’ were thrown at me from every corner of the kitchen…of course till the time I threatened to leave…. Eerie silence followed, mom was quiet for once, it was bliss.

I realized where my cribbing qualities come from, looking at the source of it at that moment was quite fun. .. she was trying not to look at the rotis, it was as if she was dying to comment, criticize….but couldn’t….haha, what sadistic pleasure 

Anyway….it was time to cook my priced possessions…had seen my sister’s rotis inflate like food prices. ..so I knew who my idol was. First one didn’t make the cut…neither did second or third. It was like seeing India lose the match. Sadness filled the room. Worse still…mom’s roving eye saw the sad state of my rotis….I could even visualize her doing the victory dance. The demoralized me tried looking elsewhere. ..but it was as if God didn’t want mommy dearest to win. The fourth one bloated up by around 75 %....yoohoo…I was back in the game. …the trend thankfully continued till our domestic help arrived. My mom asked her if she would like to try some….

I hated the disclaimer that followed: She never makes rotis you know, so don’t mind

That was it…. Now it was an all out war Mom. Like my life was dependent on my domestic help’s critique…. everything that followed seemed to happen in slow motion.
Finally Laxmi said… ‘aunty aapse accha banaya hai’

I did a miniature version of the ganpati dance in my kitchen then… Laxmi looked like she was contemplating taking back her words to stop what she was seeing. .. Anyway with one last look at my mother I left the kitchen feeling victorious.

But …looking back at the scene unwind I realize, that there was indeed a glint in my mom’s eye… a happy.. no a proud glint…. I guess it makes a mother equally proud if her daughter wins an Oscar or outdoes her at cooking…. Guess that was the explanation for that non-defeated look on my mom’s face.

But the episode has its flip side… either my mom has taken laxmi too seriously or is simply doing chance pe dance… she has very graciously made an offer to wake me up each morning to make the rotis …. Damn it mom, I am sure Laxmi was only lying ;-)