We will be okay

On saturday when A, called I had fallen asleep on the couch with my book. I had a target of 200 pages to read and there was fifty to go. I usually turn the phone to silent when I take a nap but this was an accidental nap and when his ringtone continued insistently, I finally picked up and said, groggily, yes, what, hoping he would notice and hang up. But he sounded upset, and I was immediately awake. He had gotten rear ended and he kept saying, he was okay and was in some rest-room. Rear ended didn't sound so bad and I was relieved he was all right.

and then began all the insurance, the number crunching, the calls. It turns out, she is too far gone to be repaired. You know, it might be sound silly, but she was our girl. When I first started dating A, he told me about her, he had a name for her. Swappu, short for swapna sundari, :), dream girl it meant. Man and Machine, I thought. When I got to bloomington, A and swappu came to chicago to pick me up. She is a blue verona, paint chipped a little on a side. She is about seven years old. A's first big investment after college.

And then a few days later, after dinner, I tried her out in a parking lot. She was very compliant. A gave me the spare key. A taught me to drive with her. We fought much in the car. I got my license with her. What a joke that day she was. I am glad she got to see it. She had been having some trouble. she would stop, suddenly. But almost always start again, protesting a little but she would. we spoke occasionally of giving her away, but eventually we would come to- no, she will retire in a garage in a house we will buy someday.

We drove to Indianapolis to the Indian store, loaded up with Indian sweets and stuff. I drove back. and then when A got the internship in California, we decided to load up and do cross country. She was perfect during the drive. Three days up, three days down. In Santa Clara, she had some battery trouble. But that was it.
We have gone to so many places with her- Chicago, Boston, Yosemite. Vegas. I am so sad, but I keep telling myself, look at all the stuff she saw. A will probably write about her life with him before I arrived.

I am going to put up a picture of me and her, when I find it. But she was our first car, and we loved her. Enough to cry, now that she is gone.
You know we would keep you if we could. How we get attached to everything.

Sounds and Silence

My mother, she hated sounds. She had a migraine, or she claimed one most days. The house we rented was not on the main street. The only sound there was, would be an occasional fish-seller on his cycle, a scooter, the neighbors dog barking once in a while telling us all he was still there.

I detested and loved summer holidays. I detested and loved school. Both for the same reason. Escape. All I wished was to escape her face. If you have a mother like mine then you know better than anyone what helpless means.  To be not able to console her, to say more than- when I grow up, I will never make you cry or act like a clown to just get a rare laugh out of her.
Helpless, both me and her. Her, in her inability to take solace in her kids and mine, my age. What was I to do today that would solve things, was my single most prominent thought from age eight to say, sixteen.

I am always fascinated by definitions. My uncle gifted me a big blue hard bound dictionary. Years later I would check up words- Respect, helpless, intercourse, fidelity, woebegone. These are the ones I remember.

My mother knew no better. I am 26 soon and she had me and my sister by the time she was twenty six. Most of my ideas are insane, most of my thoughts, even now are childish. I am still probably playing games with myself, sometimes with my husband and life. Why then should I expect my mother to have made sane, practical choices, decisions based on pragmatism. No, I don't blame her at all. Its just life playing tricks.

My mother screamed at me if I made the slightest sounds. And so I wouldn't sneeze too loud. I had occasional sneezing fits, mild wheezing. I hid under the parapet. There was a giant square shaped hole built for perhaps accommodating two air conditioners, my favorite summer housing. I waited there till my sneezing fits were over. Even now I can't bring myself to sneeze loudly. Everyone deems it cute- Like a kitten's sneeze. There is nothing cute about it. Its just habit.
Sneezing wasn't allowed, the atrociousness of that is now so clear.

The person I live with now is a mother. She is amazingly patient, and generous. She gives more than she asks for. I watch the fights she has with her daughter and sometimes I am jealous. If only my problems had been as simple as- you 'ordered me to cook dinner.'
I have cooked dinner for four sullen people by candlelight. In this house, my earlier fears of sound pop up. When they were having a fight and my phone beeped loudly,  my heart literally jumped in my throat. Silence is at all times the norm, don't you remember that?

My mother sends me sad texts now. They are all in abbreviated form but I can sense the sadness in these- i wsh i hd dn tngs dif"

You don't need to say it amma, I reply, I already know, no grudges.