“Husnaaaaaaaa, why is your room so messy?? What is this Husna…Why can’t you make your bed properly! Sometimes, I feel like you haven’t grown up since 1994!!”
“I was gonna clean my room, umma! Why do you have to check my room always! Don’t I have any privacy?!”
“God…You will say all these! You will know, when you become a mother and get coaxed by your children…”
I didn’t reply to that. Because, of course, I ain’t gonna enter my children’s room without their permission anyway! So I just went to my room, cleaned up the mess and came downstairs. I could hear Rayan’s squeaky stubborn noises and his mother scolding him for being impossible.
Rayan…my 3 year old nephew. Naughty is his adjective. No, actually, Rayan is the noun of naughty! Cute he is,of course..and a brat. My mom says he is like me in that way. Yeah, of course! All the not-so-good traits comes from me!
Here comes my nephew running…He is crying loudly. Another ‘legacy’ from me. Crying and loudness.
“what happened?”
“I’m fed up with this boy! He just had a bath. When I took a dress to change him, he said, he wanna wear another one. I didn’t mind that. After he is all dressed up, he ran straight to the bathroom, and poured water all over him and came back saying, my dress is wet, give me a new one!!!”
I just smiled. Maybe he IS like me. I never like to wear dresses that I don’t like too.
“Where did he go now?? That boy is driving me crazy!”
“I will take care of him.”
I went outside. He is sitting there on the swing. He is happy but has a stubborn look
in his small beautiful eyes. I was gonna laugh but I didn’t. I went near him.
“You want me to push the swing?”
“Yeah..slowly.”
“Ok, hold tightly.”
He started giggling. Especially when the swing comes backwards. I feel like
a cool aunt! I don’t understand why all mothers can’t be like me! Just cool. Never enter one’s room without permission. Else allow one to be the way he/she is. Never compel to like their choices, but give us the freedom to choose!
I think, Rayan is happier with me. Because we understand each other.
But you know, after a while, I started getting bored with pushing the swing. Its been half an hour! I stopped and sat under the tree, and told him to push with his legs. He was trying to reach the ground with his feet, suddenly he lost his grip and fell down!
“Rayaaaaaaaan!”
I really felt my heart coming outside!
“Mammaaaaaaaa…”
He started crying…He ran inside. I stood there perplexed. I didn’t know what to do…
I was near him…I made him laugh and played with him…But when he got hurt, he ran to his mamma… who by the way didn’t care for his likes in the first place. I felt really sad. I stood there looking down, holding the swing… I don’t understand why he still ran to his mother when he got hurt…
“I am not sure whether you should sit on that…Its not that strong.”
I looked up. Its my mother. She had come out, hearing all the screaming and commotion.
“You know, I don’t like swings now. I feel dizzy whenever I sit on them. I don’t enjoy them anymore like I used to, when I was a kid.”
“So you ARE growing up!”
I smiled…a dry one. I walked towards her. She sat on the threshold of our kitchen.
And I sat beside her.
I was still a little sad. I wanted to sit closer to her. So I moved nearer.
I looked at her face and gazed at her…I knew then, why Rayan ran to his mother. Because I just did the same thing…Unknowingly I was pacified just by my mother’s presence too…
“Your favourite tender coconut is in the fridge. You had asked for them when you arrived home.”
“Aaaah! I will eat now.”
I chuckled.
“You wont get those in your UK, will they?” Teasingly of course.
“No. UK doesn’t have many things I like.”
UK doesn’t have many people I love…
But I should admit, UK taught me one thing. How it is like to be, being back home…
How it is like to be with your family…How it is like to be sitting near your mother…
“I’m sorry for being a brat…I will clean my room from now on…”
She just smiled. And I hugged her and started eating the coconut with all my zest.
PS: This is a fictional story, except the characters. The real incidents in this write-up didn’t happen in the same order and the bits with Rayaan are fictional, and also I still dont clean up my room up to my mother’s standards 😀 But I would like to thank my family who gave me the liberty to make up a story on them, especially my dearest sweetest sister-in-law I can ever have Rubin Farook, who gave me the complete freedom to make up this story from part-reality and part-imagination and for letting me be a very selfish writer who wrote the story from my stubborn, selfish, small-minded angle. I do not understand motherhood yet, but she is more than generous enough to me to be motherly to her beautiful children always 🙂 Dedicating this to our Rubi and her mother-in-law, my umma..
