Chrysalis

October 5. What does one do when you are sweet
sixteen—a dreamy sixteen—you have a picture of
the perfect woman before you, and the woman is
your mother?
She is everything I want to be—tall, slim and
beautiful. She works for her figure, goes to the Gym
thrice a week and never overeats. She is old, nearly
forty, but when the two of us go out together, the
admiring looks are directed at her!
I do not know which side of the family I take
after, but my looks are certainly a disappointment.
To make matters worse, I seem to be permanently
hungry and nibble all day. In fact, I spend most of
my free time with Rukmini in the kitchen.
Ma hates that, especially when she finds that
I cannot fit into yet another set of clothes. She has
installed a mirror of awesome proportions along
one wall in my room in the hope that I will become
figure conscious and exercise with her.
Yet, try as I might, I cannot believe that the slob that I see reflected there is really me. That person is
some mistake. The real me is beautiful. Like Ma.
Younger. Even better. That thing in the mirror is just
a chrysalis. Inside is the gorgeous butterfly that will
one day open its wings and soar happily into the
world and never be discontented again.
Success comes easily to Ma. When she was my
age, she was already studying medicine and taking
part in athletics and basketball. You name it, she
did it. And did it well. After she qualified, she
married and practised medicine until Dad's
floundering pharmaceutical company almost
collapsed. Then she took over and has never looked
back. Last November she was named Business-
woman of the Year, and I know she did it all alone.
Papa, as you may have guessed by now, is no
businessman. His first love is, of all things, the
ancient world. He was an Archaeology student
and had no interest in the family industry that was
left to him to manage. After a couple of years,
he was happy to let Ma take over and he returned
to the study of old ruins.
Ma and Papa make a fine pair. He admires her
business-sense and her wit, and she marvels at the
way he can unravel the masteries of the past by
studying some old pots, bricks and stones.
As for me, I seem to be a total misfit. I cannot
understand Papa's wanderings into the past and
I cannot cope with Ma's expectations from me. She
was a gold medallist and Papa has had his share of laurels too. I am expected to bring credit to the
two of them, but I am just a mediocre student.
Something of a plodder. I even had to repeat a class
way back, when I was a kid.
Now, here I am in the tenth, still struggling and
at a loss with the syllabus. What is worse, I do not
know yet what I want to do after school. The only
thing I am sure about is that I do not want anything
that involves memorizing. But will I have the
freedom to choose? Knowing Ma's managerial
ways, I will probably be bulldozed into something
I do not want to do and all that Papa will say is,
"Your mother knows best, baby."
So while Divya will go for Fashion Designing and
Malati for Literature and then journalism, I will
just slide into some choice of Ma that holds no
interest for me.
*
"Sunaina," called Mrs Murthy. Sunaina
slammed her new diary and pushed it under the
pile of books lying on her desk. Divya, her best
friend, had presented the diary to her on
Friendship Day, but Sunaina had not started
writing in it until now.
"Are you ready?" asked her mother putting her
head round the door.
"Yes," said Sunaina. Hastily, she picked up her
books and followed Mrs Murthy out of the house.
'Boring tuitions!' she thought as she got into the
car with her mother.
When Sunaina hopped off at the coaching class,
she waved carelessly to her mother and joined her
friends as they went in. Between classes, she
decided that she had enough for the day. "Let us
go for an ice cream," she suggested to Divya.
Quietly, they left the building and entered the ice
cream parlour next door. They whiled away their
time for an hour, then Sunaina cadged a lift home.
The next few days were busy and Sunaina had
no time to confide in her diary. She skipped tutions
and went for Diwali shopping with her friends.
She bought a small sindoor box for her mother and
a cigar box for her father.
"I thought your dad doesn't smoke," said Divya.
"He does not. He will use it to keep the old coins
he is trying to date or something like that. You know
my dad. His study is full of things that look like
junk but are really valuable, and he is always
sorting or sending off stuff to appropriate places.
At least he will have a nice-looking box in which
he can store those things!"
They laughed and carried on with their
shopping, unaware that while they were enjoying
themselves, a crisis was brewing. It was just not
her lucky day...
*
October 20. What a Diwali this was going to be!
Ma was laid up with a broken leg and their help,
Rukmini, had taken leave to be with her daughter
who was expecting her first child. There was no one to manage things in the house except me.
And do you know, I am enjoying myself!
Don't get me wrong. I don't like to see Ma like
this, but at the same time, it is nice to be the strong,
efficient one round the place for a change!
Ma was on way to my tuition institute when she
had met with this accident. I wondered why she
was going there. I later learnt that Sir had called
her up because I had been cutting classes so often.
I informed him about Ma's accident and promised
to be regular in the future. He agreed not to
complain and said he would assure Ma. He called
her up and told her that he had only wanted to
show her my test papers and while he thought
I did need to put in more effort, I was doing okay.
How I had to work to get that one sentence out
of him!
"If you don't work hard, Sunaina," he had
continued, "you will be disgracing yourself, your
family and my institute," he spoke emphatically,
his eyes bulging a little and making me tremble.
"I have got a reputation to maintain and I can tell
you, I will not tolerate casual behaviour here."
Wow! That was some ordeal for me. For Ma's
sake I went through it, and now I had this awful
job of living up to my promise to Sir.
But it is not all that bad. Ma is really impressed
with the way I have been looking after her and the
house and still managing to go prepared for
tuitions. Luckily we have got our Diwali holidays early this year and I do not have to go to school.
As for Pa, he lives in his own world. He still
thinks Rukmini is doing the cooking and on more
than one occasion has said, "Namita, you must tell
Rukmini that today's curry was delicious."
Ma and I look at each other and burst out
laughing. We seem to be doing a lot of that
nowadays, where earlier we did not have much to
say to each other.
October 28: It is tough to find time to write
regularly. There seems to be something that needs
to be done at every moment of the day. Ma has so
many visitors plus all those files to attend to.
Rukmini is back, thank goodness, so I am not too
busy, but I do help her out in the cooking because
I enjoy trying out new dishes for Ma and Papa.
And do you know, in spite of being so involved
with food, I seem to have lost weight. Ma said so,
my mirror told me so, and my old jeans proved it!
And recently, at least three people commented on
my resemblance to Ma. Can you beat that?
What is more, Ma and Papa and I all seem to
have the same idea for the first time in years.
Maybe I ought to go into the catering vocation.
Papa suggested it after he finally realized that it
was I who was producing those pies and souffles
and different kinds of stuffed parathas.
To my surprise, Ma had also agreed. "As long as
you are happy in the career you choose..." and she
had left the sentence half-finished.
Is it not amazing? I cannot believe this is the
same mother who was so exacting and so strict
about my marks.
I feel so happy inside that I do not even mind
studying all this gibberish because I know it won't
be for very long.
I am looking forward to the next few years...