She!

She shook her head and left the kitchen in turmoil. She knew what lay ahead of her. Work, hatred, work and more hatred!

With too many thoughts in her mind, she entered the room of her teenage son who was lying on a bean bag and playing a video game. One look around his room and she knew why he called for her. He looked at her carelessly and smirked.

“Mom, please clean my room. My friends will be coming in the evening and will stay tonight. So please cook some nice snacks and dinner for them. But please do not embarrass me by coming in front of them. You cannot even speak English, let alone understanding our conversations.”

Without paying any heed to his insults, she started cleaning his room and stacked up all the empty pizza boxes in a corner and with concern, she told him, “Mittu, if you stack up all these pizza boxes and throw them after a week or so, you will catch diseases, beta! It is very important for us to throw away stale food and the cartons containing them. And having so much of coke and chips will harm your health.”

And of course, she gets no reply from him. So she throws away all the boxes, changes the bed-sheets, sweeps his room and asks him before leaving the room, what he would do if she was not present.

“Ah! Don’t worry about me, mom. I would hire a servant. She will do the job.”

She was insulted every day. She had to go through this treatment each day but this was the limit for her. She could not take it up any longer and barged into the kitchen and started weeping slowly. What could she do anyway? How could she improve her little son’s behaviour now, who in my view was as fat as a bull? And of course, she cannot spank him and set him straight for he was a teenager which in my view is totally non-sense. Parents can set their children right whenever they want to even if he is a teenager or a middle-aged person.

Come evening, she kept herself busy in cooking and setting up food for her son and his friends. The only time when she was asked to appear in front of the kids was when she had to serve the food. It was dinner time and the kids appeared at the table. When she was setting the table, few kids volunteered to help her. Her son was furious with them and asked them to join him but they did not listen.

One kid chirped in, “Aunty, please eat along with us.”

She refused saying that she would eat along with her husband. Another kid said that he thought she wasn’t home because she did not even welcome them or wish them. Her son laughed and brushed it aside. And much to the disgust of the kids, he asked her to leave the room rudely. She left the room and went into her bedroom. She was very tired with the day’s work and tried to relax by reading a book. Later, she called her husband to ask where he was. Satisfied with his reply, she got back to her book. Her thoughts wandered, she could not understand why her son treated her like that. She was always nice to him, helped him, loved him, and protected him, she was his mother. She remembered those happy days when her son loved her and played with her but everything changed three years back. He was no more a child; he said that he had no time to cuddle with her. He was a grown-up. Yes, at a mere fifteen!

After the hearty meal, the kids dispersed into her son’s room and it was time her husband came home. He was the only person who treated her nicely in the entire house.

It was her birthday today. Her son and her mother-in-law did not acknowledge it, let alone wishing her warmly. Her husband came home with sweets, a cake and a gift for her, the solitaire set that she always wanted. A quiet dinner with her husband was what she wanted, and during the dinner, she voiced out her woes to him. She filled him in all that has happened today; she asked him why her son did not love her. Her husband, who knew nothing of this behaviour was furious with her for not telling him this before. He summoned his son and asked his friends to leave in a nice manner. His friends who understood the situation were more than happy to leave as they were disgusted of his behaviour towards his mother.

His father asked him why he was behaving with his mother in this manner. And here comes the reply,

“Why should I treat her well? Dadi says that she is not nice. She is good-for-nothing. She cannot talk English; she cannot understand the books I read. In short, she is just so alien to my life. I cannot relate with her, dad.”

His mother went inside the room not wanting to be a part of this conversation. But his father wanted this conversation to happen. In his way!

“Of course, a boy who cannot even do statistics in his tests calls his mother good-for-nothing. She, who apparently did her engineering and topped our college, left her job and her dreams to be a house-wife and to be a part of a boy’s life who hardly scores 40 in maths. What a shame! She, who wrote pieces for commercial magazines, and news-papers in our college, cannot speak English? Ironically, she cannot understand the books that you read because they aren’t even literature. In short, she is an alien in your life because you have chosen to see her like that. You have no values, and cannot respect your mother. But I do have! This lady, your mother was a meritorious student in our college and if she takes up a job, she can easily earn more than me but she chose to stay home and cook for me. But you will never realize the value of your mother till she is with you. And when you realize, it will be too late.”