How My Mother Showed Her Love

How my mother showed her love

Well, mostly, she didn't.
I mean, she didn't bake me a cake
for my birthday with pretty pink and white
frosting, and candles stuck on top
like all the other girls got
(she didn't know how to, and
in any case, we didn't have an oven)
She didn't polish my school shoes
Or make sure my homework was done.
If my uniform wasn't ironed,
she said, well, you should have kept it
with the clothes for the dhobi
why didn't you,
and let me go to school with a crumpled shirt.

She didn't kiss me goodnight.
I don't recall a hug until that day
when I put my arms around her
one day in the kitchen,
just like that, I said,
when she asked me what
I thought I was doing
that was when I was
fifteen, and spent most of my days
hiding from her
and the world
so I guess the surprise was warranted
My mother never hugged me she said
in later years, when I would force-hug her
and complain about how she never
initiated contact

tell me the truth I said once
I'm adopted aren't I?
she got this-expression- on her face,
snorted, and said, don't you have
anything else to do
Later I found a diary
where she'd scrawled-
in the manner of one crossing off
an item on a to-do list-
Delivered baby girl 4.20 pm
or maybe it was to make it real to her
that the red puny crying thing
with a bush of hair
was, in fact, hers.

When I was six
competitive motherhood caused her enough anxiety
that she told my father
I don't think she reads enough
though by that time I was reading
the entire Gospel of Matthew King James Version aloud
without messing the thees and thines,
curling my tongue around the words
Verily I say unto thee

So my father trusted the Indian Postal Service
to deliver to me a package of books- ten books!-TEN-
a glorious number-an unimaginably large number-
it took three months to arrive-
I remember the green paper packaging tearing under the scissors
I took to it- no, my mother, wasn't the kind
who stopped her child from wielding sharp instruments-

And when I was nine, she would
borrow books for me from the library
books that I had no real right yet to read
because I was only a child
but my mother didn't particularly care
because it kept me quiet and occupied
on the evenings when she wanted
to do nothing more than curl up
with a book herself
in our tiny flat that had two rooms
and no tv then, just an old radio,
a peace would reign till it was time
for me to eat whatever it was she had made-
bhindi, usually, because that was the only thing
I would eat
and I think back now on how tired she must have got
eating the same thing every day-


Once when I was so ill that I needed to be admitted
in a hospital with a needle shoved in my arm
she left me with a family friend
because she had to go to work that day
and nobody would give her a day off
to be with her sick child
when she came back that day
she put her hand on my brow and said
are you okay
and I said yes
and she said okay
and then sat in the chair next to me
and pulled out a book to read
while I pretended to talk to the faces in the white ceiling

another time I woke up in the morning
with my throat hurting and my face puffed up
and she laughed and said, you look like a frog
and then, as an afterthought, we better go to the doctor

I knew what sex was before she told me-
her voice dry and business like,
a bit impatient, as though she had something else to do,
and she probably did,
but she taught me new words
vagina and penis
I had no idea until then, even though I'd already had
an (admittedly) theoretical understanding of what an orgasm was
it involved lots of kissing and perhaps shoving into walls
her hair spread over the pillow, his hands grabbing her hips-his mouth on her breasts-
but- penis and vagina- that felt- simpler
and also- boring?- surely, she was-wrong-

When I was almost sixteen I told her
I wanted to wax my legs and hands
I was already, then, beginning to feel
unfeminine (unfuckable)
the rules were changing so fast around me
like one day my hips suddenly had curves
but my breasts remained flat
and I didn't know much,
but I knew that hair on legs
was considered
not acceptable
-so- waxing-
my mother laughed incredulously-
she'd never waxed any part of herself-
where, she said, did you get this idea
and then, more sharply,
You look fine-
but of course, I knew the truth already-
I didn't look fine (fuckable)-
but that was that-
I had to try and convince myself
that smartness was a (fuckable) quality-
that worked as well as you'd imagine
in the years just after Aishwarya Rai
had won Miss World
and Pamela Anderson was still
Somebody Hot


On the day I started my tenth class board exams
she asked, as we walked to school,
did you study
as though it had suddenly occurred to her
that this might have some relevance
yes, I lied
and she nodded

I don't think she ever knew when I was
lying to her
I don't think she ever expected it-
she never
laid a trap
to find me out-
She'd never, in all the time I'd known her-lied
even when it would have been better for her to-

but she had one of those faces
that showed every emotion,
requiring no translation-
like the time she'd gotten a fancy hair style-
her lovely,long hair, shortened to just over her shoulders-
and my aunt walked into a roomful of people
gathered for a wedding and said-loudly-
What have you done with your hair-
my mother went crimson from embarassment-
the colour of her rich magenta sari-


My mother let me choose my own clothes
from when I was eight:
when a cousin asked about it, she said, vaguely,
It's easier that way.

When I was seventeen, she let me buy
the most expensive pair of shoes
anybody in my family had ever owned.


When I was fifteen I told her I was going for a movie
with my friends.
Okay, she said, but be back by eight.
When I came back at 8.15, she said,
what did we buy you that watch for.

Is that what you're wearing she'd ask
Just as I had one foot out the door,
and then go back to whatever she was doing.

When I was nine, an older friend picked up a book
I was reading and quoted
Bess goes on a blind date- she stopped-
looked at me, and then at my mother-
and asked- do you know what a blind date is-
Sure, I said, Bess doesn't know whom she's going to meet-
My mother said, oh, that's all, ok.
And then perhaps remembering
that she was supposed to set the rules-
Are you sure you should be reading this?
I shrugged, it isn't one of the good ones anyway,
the mystery isn't that good-

These days -some days- she tells me
I never looked after you properly
Like all the others did
I should have-

And I ask, half joking, half scared
I turned out ok, didn't I?
Yes, mostly, she says,
with half a smile.
So I put my arms around her,
because it doesn't occur to her
that we're having a Moment,
and after a half minute she says, hopefully,
is this enough?