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Mama Son

Posted on December 24, 2006
Filed Under The Stories |

One particularly hot summer afternoon, while she was fanning herself with a week old newspaper my mother said to me, ‘do you know that parents always tend to find it easier to hate the ‘good kid’?” She was fond of enacting air quotes. I was fifteen at the time and the distress was clearly audible in my pimply voice. Yeah I know there is no such thing as a ‘pimply voice…’ great! Now I’m doing the air quotes thing! But think about it, all those pimply kids you knew as a kid yourself, or probably the ones you know now, all those self-aware magic-zit-cream-buying losers have a certain…voice.

I was reminded of the time she hadn’t allowed me to go on a ‘date’ when I was thirteen with Nandita Kovalam because, one: Nandita was four years older than me; two:she thought Nandita was the wrong person to initiate me into the world of kissing and ’suchlike’; three: she was my mother and I was supposed to listen to her as long as I lived under her roof.

I thought about the time she seemed perfectly okay about drunkenly flirting with Selva uncle, well actually Selvaganesh Muthulingam was his real name but wouldn’t you also call him Selva Uncle if you met him? And Dad was right there okay? Not half way across the country at a conference like most other times.

So I asked her in my best pimply voice, “are you saying that you hate me, Mom?” because I totally had something to say to her if she did.

She looked at me with an expression of pure surprise that turned into pure sarcasm as she returned to fanning herself and staring out the window, “I’m sorry kid. Your mama’s the old-fashioned kind in those respects.” Then she looked me right in the eyes and said, “I’m afraid you’re going to be the one required to do the hating here.”

Dude, your mom sounds cool.

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