I’ll cry from inside, when I see a grandmother eating cassata ice cream at the roadside icecreamwala. Her bob cut hair, cheeks protruding like the tops of two peaches, her spectacles resting on her forehead at a little crooked angle. I’ll wonder what my Amma would have looked like in her seventies—if she would have the same perm, which was partly inspired by Lady Diana and partly due to the humid weather.
I imagine putting my arm around her, her stout frame leaning against mine though she hated anyone leaning against her, but I have had that privilege .She would carry the white Harrods bag which was very dear to her and her pink Nike sneakers which were among her prized possessions. She’d pluck the lint off my coat and pick on me—how my shoulders slumped, how I was not drinking enough milk(according to her milk is the elixir), how I should really get married. Meanwhile she would scan the market to find something else to eat, something spicy and tangy. And on the way back home way she would ask me to play "Bhar De Jholi" in my car and she would sing along with occasional Subhan Allahs in between.
If I’m being honest, there’s a lot of anger. I’m angry at this old woman I don’t know, that she gets to live and my mother does not, like somehow this stranger’s survival is at all related to my loss. Why is she having that ice cream and my Amma isn’t? Other people must feel this way. Life is unfair, and sometimes it helps to irrationally blame someone for it.
Other day while sitting at Marine Drive I saw a boy’s mom place food from her spoon onto his spoon. He is quiet and looks tired and doesn’t talk to her much. I want to tell him how much I miss my mother. How he should be kind to his mom, remember that life is fragile and she could be gone at any moment.
Rest of it some other day.
