Eating in
Writing
Yosha Khurana
I told her I had already eaten. In the years that I have known her in the capacity of my mother, I have not seen her take a no for an answer. I stop trying and sit down for the lunch she has lovingly spent all morning making. Potatoes fried with their skins still on–just how I like them.
“Let me tell you all about the meeting I had today while I was out shopping and once you are done eating, we can open all the presents I got for you together!”
“I might have to return to the laptop for a quick-”
“Bup bup bup, you can obviously find some time to spare for your dear mommy. I work so hard for you all day, wouldn't you let me see you and watch you smile at the things I have gotten you, can’t you find five minutes in your day for your mother? I am getting old, dear, I am sick all the time, do you want to come to regret-”
“I will tell them I would be late to the meeting, family emergency.”
She squealed and clapped tiny claps with her fingertips. Everyone sat around, that is how she likes to do gifts, and watched as I opened my deodorant and a basket–we love organising everything–and the fifth flower painting we have bought this month, my mother loves to support local artists. I never am able to keep awake through the afternoon meetings anyway, and if my mother thinks it is okay for me to be skipping them, what do I know of the world to disagree with her upon?
They threaten disciplinary action and I tell them that I live with my family and I have responsibilities, my mother is getting old.
They tell me all that they need of me by EoD and claim that I am already an hour behind. My mother reassures me from my bed, where she finds rest from her day and watches me slouch in front of my screen. She used to tell me to sit better but has since moved on to other issues with my posture.
Work comes to a close, as it does, for the day and I find my phone ringing. My mother, who had gotten up to make dinner, has opened my door and stands there with her eyes on me, as my friend tells me of a jazz thing where they want to find someone to sleep with tonight. I ask them how long I should think to leave in and my mother begins to make a sad face.
“I have made fish just the way you like it, I wrapped it in leaves for you! I work so hard for you, can’t we sit together and share a meal, my dear? My sweet child, you know I am getting old, the doctor has told me my eyes are starting to-”
“I don’t think I would be able to make it tonight,” I say to my phone, “work has really been taking it out of me. Hope you find someone pretty to take home.” I watch my mother’s face change.
With the spatula still in her hand, she squeals and claps her little claps. I love a quiet night in, and a fish is better for me than a beer is anyway.
After dinner, we get to watching TV. I love letting my mother pick what we spend our hours on. When I get tired, I get up and stretch a big stretch. I go to my room and by the time I am in bed, she is at my door.
“You would let me sleep in your bed tonight, won’t you? I get so cold and you know my allergies flare up in that room. And the weather is so ruthless, I get so cold and you know then my arthritis starts to act up on me when I get that cold and I just miss you so much when I sleep, you would let me sleep with you tonight, yes?” She asks as she dumps her blanket on my side of the bed.
It isn’t fair that I have a whole room to myself anyway. I could learn to share.
We could all have our own rooms but nobody goes into nani’s. It is how the world works. Daughters must eat their mothers. That is how they get the protein to raise their own daughters. Mumma told me how nani tried to bite her. She still has the scar on her forearm. Nani should have known better, we are born into our places in this world. It is unbecoming to try and believe otherwise, and more so to act on those beliefs.
I wake to find her bosom next to my face. I get up and find it in me to head into a shower. I try to be quiet so as to not wake her, she gets tired.
By the time the shower is over, I am late to my laptop and my mother is in the kitchen. It is lucky we don’t have locks or latches in this house because while in the shower, I could not hear her. She could just pop the door open and check if I wanted eggs for breakfast, because I did.
Concept Note
I wrote ‘eating in’ when I saw the relationship a friend of mine was experiencing with their mother. The mother, through no fault of her own, had begun to impose herself upon this child, all their personal spaces were her own. There were things that were happening in their home life that the mother was in no position to accept and handle.
The more I was told and allowed to perceive the generational relationships within the family, the more each person's response was obvious, like a part laid out for them without their choosing, a script they were fated to play out.
I have grown up a woman in India, I have grown up with a mother and she has grown up with her's. All love has costs, not all love is willing to bear its costs. Sometimes it is kinder to end someone's suffering, to consume them whole.
I have been told that I have been mean to the mother I have written. I want to express explicitly that that was not my intention. To end cycles of trauma that repeat themselves is no easy feat, and would never come tidy. It is not messy, it is nasty work. It cannot be expected to look sanitised. The world that we know can tend to be unkind. Each person has their way of turning it kinder. A parent is a child.
Artist Bio
A home of Yosha’s was haunted and ghost stories have been following her since. Yosha K is a writer. Born and raised in Jaipur, moving back and forth between Mumbai and her home town, the living of life in human bodies and human homes keep showing themselves in her work.