Mother-daughter relationship is very complex in nature. A strong thread of love mingled with misunderstandings, fights and (strong) disagreements. Mother is your best support system and your worst critic ever. At times she is the sole person knowing your secret while the other times she is the one you hide your dirty secrets from. Some days you laugh together sharing jokes and gossips, other days you refuse to see eye to eye after thunderous fights.
My relationship with my Mom has changed drastically over the years. Being youngest in the family I was always the pampered one. When a kid, my lies about false stomach aches for not going to school were always acknowledged in a very positive way by my mother. Even in my late teens, whenever I wanted to bunk school or college my mother always gave me a thumbs up. And I am very grateful to her for this. Not because she allowed me to do so, but because when I think about it now, I realize that my mother trusted me deeply. She knew it when I have to study I will study; she just left it to me to decide my priorities. She never forced or pressurised me to study or attend school. I love her for this, because it taught me at a very early stage that I am responsible for my own acts. If I don’t study, I won’t score good marks, so that was a lesson learnt early and very efficiently by me.
But on the other side, my girlie issues and teenage trouble were always discussed and solved by my elder sister. So in that respect, I wasn’t very close or comfortable sharing “the other side” of my life with my mom. However soon after my sister moved out, there was a considerable change brought about in relationship I shared with my mother. With my sister gone and my father posted in another city, I soon began discussing about my life, friends, trends etc with my mother and she began directing the gossips towards me (this department was earlier solely handled by my elder sister). Also she began taking my advice on various issues from fashion to food. However all was not bright and cherry, occasional fights were no strangers in the home. So on the whole we share a perfect mother daughter relation.
When I was at home, I left no stone upturned to nag my mother. From the type of dresses she wore to the kind of food she made. Mostly and almost always I criticized the food. Most of the fights we had were somehow or the other related to food. Mostly ending with me refusing to eat even a morsel of food and she after trying in vain, finally succumbing (again!) to my pressure and cooking my favorite dishes. I distinctly remember the times I pushed away and wasted food, simply stating that I hate it! When I look back now I realize how my mother must have felt during those times.
Now that I have started cooking myself I understand the kind of efforts and love that are put when you cook. When some criticises my cooking (and this criticism includes only comments like “salt is less”, “red chillies are more”), you won’t believe but I mentally murder that person and feel like holding their hair and shout at the top of my voice “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH EFFORT I HAVE PUT ON THIS, CAN’T TO JUST SAY A FEW POSITIVE THNGS AND LEAVE THE REST TO ME”? It is then I realize that how ungrateful I have been t my mother. Far from venting out her anger on me for my behaviour, she went ahead and prepared food with equal amount of love and care. LOVE HER LIKE HELL!! Wish I could fly away and just hug her once and come back, just a hug.
The irony now is such that there are times when I crave like crazy to eat my mothers’cooked food (and believe it or not mostly the one that I hated back then) but I can’t! Waiting eagerly to go home so that I can gorge on yummy food cooked by mom and yea most importantly not forget to compliment her for the same
:-)
