I am the Middle One

Last night when I was feeding Anu, she did not want to finish the rice. I told her “Anu do you know, Nana made this rice”. Truly so, that afternoon I had to run to drop Anu off at a birthday party forgetting that I had rice boiling on the stove. Perfectly knowledgeable that Ankita was quite clumsy in the kitchen, I called out to her to strain the rice when it was done. She looked a little nervous, but did manage to do the job before I rushed back home.

Anu looked at the same rice more closely and said with wonder “But, Mama it tastes just like when you make it”. I spooned some more of rice into her mouth while continuing the conversation about her sister’s culinary abilities, mostly to distract her to the last bite. While she chewed the rice, she asked me a very simple question that stopped me in my tracks for the hundredth time these past few days. Anu asked “Mama, if Nana can cook rice, do you think she is going to get married after this?” I laughed at the connection that she made. Very Indian I thought! If you learn how to cook, you are ready to be married.

But with her question surfaced something that had been bothering me of late. Strangely, a whole life time swept before my eyes. Ankita is 12. She is just beginning to grow up in her own special way. Taking interest in clothes, boys, makeup, hair straighteners, writing in her dairy and having an opinion. I remember quite vividly doing the same things not too long ago. But it seems like a flash that 40 years have passed by. My mother is closing on 70. Of late she has been crippled by severe pain in her legs because of a slip disc in her vertebrae. She lies in bed thinking of the children that she bore in her womb, 3 of them, none that can be of any physical help. Is this life, I thought. That short??????? Now I am 12, 40 in the blink of an eye and 70 in the moment after? And then???? Its all done????

Anu was done with the rice by that time. She said “Mama, I cant bear it if Nana ever gets married and leaves the house”. I nodded to her, “Yes Anu, we should find a way to stop Time”.