The mother-daughter relationship is complex. In this fictionalised account, Maya shows how a mother-daughter duo, who danced and laughed like best of friends, suddenly became distant. Trisha, the daughter feels, that what she gets the most from her mother, Ritika, is finger pointing, pricking comments, hurting comparisons and mocking smiles at how incompetent she is. Maybe she isn’t as good a girl as her Mom used to be, back in her teenage or as studious as Rashi is but then she expects unconditional love from her Ma and Pa so that she might again feel pampered, loved and more fulfilled a person. Here’s the agony of a daughter, in the regular column, exclusively for Different Truths.
We were both young when I first saw you…/
I close my eyes/
And the flashback starts/
…I see, you make your way through the crowd/
And say hello…
‘Hello! Anybody home?’ Trisha croons.
‘Nobody home!’ her mother croons back in response smiling and opening the glass door.
Trisha flings her school shoes aside and plays the music system at a loud volume.
‘Mom what’s there for lunch and by the way how did your party go?’ Trisha pulls the rubber bands off her hair and runs fingers through the dense bunch.
‘Ummm…it was Manchurian, biryani, aloo dum, malai kofta and stuffed nans.’
‘My mouth begins watering. Left some?’ Trisha yells from the dining hall tying her hair again. She looks herself in the mirror still swaying to the song.
‘Hmmm. And my Miss World, you left your tiffin again lying on the study table!’
‘Ummm…so silly I am!’ she carefully puts her school bag on a chair and wraps it with her maroon blazer, smiles at it whimsically and twitches it saying ‘That’s like a good boy!’
Next, she directly heads for the kitchen, unfastening her pony-tail.
‘Make it quick or your Miss World will die of hunger.’ She picks up a few onion rings and cucumber pieces and begins munching.
‘Leave it! First, wash your hands.’ Ritika, her Mom slaps her hand.
‘For God’s sake! Stop treating me like a kid!’ Trisha roars like a wounded tigress throwing the rings in the bin directly.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Ritika asks her eyes boring into Trisha’s.
Trisha takes a deep breath, regains her composure and smiles.
‘Nothing. I’m fine. Okay fine. I’m in no mood to argue. Let’s do what…let’s dance.’ she fastens her pony- tail again.
‘Let’s what?’
‘Let’s dance Mom!’ Trisha eases the air by extending a warm smile that really overwhelms Ritika.
‘And you really think you have grown up darling?’ Ritika asks, feeding her a slice of cucumber.
‘Mom please!’
‘I’ll fall down. Look at my waist. I can’t dance.’
‘You can! I’ll teach you. Now c’mon!’ she pulls her out in the dining hall and rewinds the song.
Her Mom looks at her, intrigued.
‘Now listen! Pay attention to the dance step timing and the beats.’ Her neck and head has already started swaying in rhythm. She pulls out a natural rosebud from the vase and clenches it between her sparkling white rows of teeth.
Ritika doubles with mirth.
‘Don’t laugh Mom. You’ll be playing the girl. K?’
‘Ummm…k!’
Trisha rolls off the rubber band from her ponytail again and flings it in the air.
‘Hey! It’s me playing the girl!’ her mom shakes back her hair.
‘Ye aaj kal ka ladka hai. Hee-hee. Even Shahrukh Khan has a pony-tail and yes! Sonu Nigam too!’
Ritika throws herself on Trisha’s tender shoulders with almost a rude jerk.
‘Ouch! Mom!’
‘I told you, I can’t!’
‘I told you, you can! Let’s try again. Wait a minute. We’ll use this a little later.’ She shoves the rose stem into the vase again.
‘Now hold my finger. Yes. And one arm behind you. Clear? You have to twirl but please don’t squeeze my finger the same clumsy way…’
Ritika nods like a child suppressing her smile.
‘No sentiment without the rose so please if you don’t mind…’ Trisha giggles.
She helps her Mom to bend, to twirl, to rest her body on her slender arms telling her to close her eyes with a passionate smile.
Ritika can’t hold anymore.
She laughs like never before, her waist aching, though.
‘Expressions Mom! Where are the expressions?’ Trisha exclaims, her eyes twinkling with an untold joy.
‘Stop all this now! Ho! I can’t…I can’t.’
Both fall on the bed with a thud laughing.
‘I’m feeling so hungry that I can devour anything. You know what our Sanskrit teacher used to quote? Bubhukshtim kim na karoti something- something, which means a hungry person can commit any sin…hee-hee…dekha mujhe abhi bhi yaad hai.’
Ritika is all breathless and sweating indeed in winter.
She comes to the kitchen and gets busy in serving lunch.
‘Mom, what is this? It’s all so oily and spicy! I can’t eat this.’
‘Where’s the oil, dear? I do try my best to avoid. You know your Mom-Dad are on dieting?’
‘Ho! If you guys diet like this, you can never have the tyres off your waist.’ Trisha laughs a cynical laughter.
‘Look at your manners!’ Ritika barks, burning with humiliation and heartache.
Trisha gets on her nerves really.
***
Trisha yearns for a reassuring hug from her Mom, which she rarely gets these days. What she gets the 
most from her is finger pointing, pricking comments, hurting comparisons and mocking smiles at how incompetent she is. Maybe she isn’t as good a girl as her Mom used to be, back in her teenage or as studious as Rashi is but then she expects unconditional love from her Ma and Pa so that she might again feel pampered, loved and more fulfilled a person.
She can’t, of course, fall on her knees and ask for a motherly kiss, a nurturing hug from her father or a pat on her back from the teacher whenever she does well.
‘Yeah! You’ve got the point now! I have no manners, Mom! Coz you never seem to have time to teach me some…coz you are enjoying the juicy gossips with your friends…the social circle you know…coz you are squandering money in clubs, kitty parties and parlours…giggling and gorging on titbits leaving the previous night’s food for us to feed upon…’ Trisha bites back with ‘go to hell’ nonchalance, hooks her thumbs into her schoolbag straps and rushes towards the staircase fuming.
Ritika is standing in the doorway tears springing to her eyes and with her lips buttoned.
An hour passes by.
The mother has her daily dose of siesta.
The daughter orders Cheese Burst Pizza and has it in her room.
©Maya Khandelwal
Photos from the internet.
#MotherWrites #Relationships #MotherAndDaughter #Understanding #RelationshipShift
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