My Mother's Point of View

I was watching “What happens in Vegas” the other day. I know it’s a pretty crappy movie with some really bad dialogues and bad acting. There is this one scene where the woman talks about the day her perfect day on the beach. (It sounds super corny). This time it reminded me of 9 stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". There is no connection whatsoever, in the first one the woman is happy about her life and in the second the guy commits suicide (the perfect guy, Seymour Glass, whom I used to idolize for the better part of my teenage life). Weird cross connection that I make...

These days all I can think of is having a normal life. Not the kingfisher ad of good times but a life where I am happy. Very cliché but there it is, my new motto. This whole thought process started off with this conversation I had with my mother. Me and my mom don’t have too many things to talk about these days, the conversation starts off with my health (rather how badly I am screwing it up), my money saving trait or the lack of it and my brother (he is enjoying his life in sunny Florida while I am stuck here giving daily reports to my mom).

This particular conversation did not take the usual route though. It went something like this “One of your cousins is married and the other one is in a relationship, ergo you are the only spinster in the house. I know that you lead an unhappy life and you cry yourself to sleep every night because of your incomplete life” (ok, I am paraphrasing but the gist was very clear). So there I was totally clueless about my mom’s mood and I got into this shit headlong without any warning.

It got me thinking, not that I am crying myself to sleep and eating anything and everything I could lay my hands on like in that song hey there Delilah (the parody version). But, I could understand my mom’s side of things. I don’t have a life. I live with three other people in a tiny apartment. I am literally living out of a box. I have a bed on which I spend most of my day; I could be a stationary object for that matter.  This was not the life I thought I would be living.

The only good thing is that I read a lot these days. I am addicted to flipkart. I flipkart more than I facebook. I keep making wishlists and more reading lists; I research about new books if I am free night or day. But there is that niggling feeling at the back of my head that my mom might be right.

  

How am I supposed to convince my mother that I am content with this life when I am actually not? But the reasons are quite different. I want to travel. I keep making plans of travelling to Vietnam, Korea, Ladakh, NY.  But how and when I have no idea, but I do know that I don’t want to stay put in Mumbai for the next four years playing my role of a Dilbert character.

I am going home for a week today. I am scared of what might happen there. P thinks it’s a huge conspiracy that I am not telling her about my impending “engagement”. Her argument, why do you have to go home for a week JLT? I most definitely cannot convince her.How can I tell her that my mother dearest has requested my presence to see for herself that I am doing good and not adopted ten stray cats :D 

Anyways, the rant continues. Will be back soon with stories from Hyderabad.