My mother scolds me for a complaining world!
It was yet another instance of a complaint from a school teacher, cruelly eating into my mother’s ears and pulsating her heart, over the telephone.
She dropped the call and turned towards me with a couple of looming eyes that were helpless. She had yet not understood how she could do away with my evil habits.
The same thought tortured her thereafter and more so when the school teachers complained about it. It would do all that makes her fiery red eventually plunging into purple-prosy lady, who has not yet decided on her shot at the budding child. It is pitiably undeniable as to the teacher that I was easily able to make out precisely what venom she has spat and sent into my mother. She must have gone saying, “Mrs. Bhatia, your ward has not done his English homework. What a spirited disregard towards studies! So much so when I ask him why did you not do the homework, the unabashed soul has precisely one reason to cite, 'Ma’am, I wished to do it all. But, I am morbidly fed up of you'."
Sure enough, then, my mother or better call her "Mrs. Bhatia” chews down any the patience in her to the cud and begins drawing a sustainable plan to punish me. I tried to calm her down saying, “Mom, could I help with the making of the plan?” It served only to whip up the frenzy that was about to bash on my head. Haplessly enough, her plans have never seen the light of the day. Even as she rethinks about it, she climbs down the ladder. Why? Well, since my mother had learned that If she would beat me down anytime earlier than I grow a wisdom tooth in my 4’5 buccal cavity, it would have been a catastrophe.
It must have been a strand of the superstition that my grandmother narrated to her simple daughter so as to save me from such harsh moments. As things tumble out, my mother met the superstition halfway. She wrapped my mouth, exclusively the area under the nose covering the lips to shut them.
And thrashed me up and down, while I could make failed attempts at crying or shrieking. The rationale here is since walls could not hear me, the prospect of the wrong done, being diffused to how so ever near or distant human, was not a loose fiction or likelihood. But, what else can be expected from a mother who has to listen to a string of similar complaints from so many, all day long? When my mother does not have the will to entertain them all, she entirely gives up at the hands of tragedy. So much as she gingerly announced before initiating a conversation with others that she was not born to descend her intestines to the knees, listening only to complaints. For many days the new attitude of my mother pleased no one as it did me. She had stopped fussing over my misdoings simply because a “mere complaint” came to her. As life itself makes a complete circle, there are repeat events to test the patience of a particular person. One such moment came her way too. It was when the same school teacher rang her up and mom reflexively took the call. Typically, as earlier, the teacher began, "Mrs. Bhatia, do you know your ward…" At the repetition of the same line, seemingly complaining, seared up my mother sorely. And interrupting her on phone, she said, “Full-silence now, I do not always want to listen to the complaints of my ward. And that I too am fatally sick of you. Do not chew up my ears.” In the course of her wording, my mother even went to a messy meaty margin and announced–“You see, for God’s sake I know that I cannot beat only those who have not grown a wisdom teeth.” My mother finally draws a deep breath while a big blow of womanly throat arrested her on the wrong foot, “Mrs. Bhatia, I had called to announce that your son has got the highest marks in English language.” My mother fell back on the chair, in this trembling surprise and also felt hugely embarrassed after having cut a sorry figure that left her nothing to curry favour with.