“Why so serious?”
We are two siblings — both girls — me being the younger one. Our childhood and adolescence have been staged around our mother, who was the in-house ‘Lady Hitler’ and the most elegant lady on the face of the earth to the outside world. If you are not very familiar with World History, you can fairly imagine her as Mahavir Singh Phogat from Dangal.
I remember our regular dinner time theatrics when my father would invariably leave his smelling socks on the dining chair and dive into the served food. My mother would all on a sudden transform from the Sanskari Indian mother to Ma Kali and start her favorite repertoire,” Had my father been more thoughtful and not married me off at such young age, I would have become an artist now. Look at my fate…picking up dirty socks all day. Your father is an untolerable man!” And, as sweet and harmless as we are, my sister and I would cry out in harmony, “ Ma, it is ‘intolerable’ — not ‘untolerable’.” This would shift her focus towards us, “ Right! Who had prepared you two for all those elocution contests? And you! You wouldn’t finish your meals without the same Cinderella story every day. Now, these girls will teach me Grammar! All my father’s fault!” With due respect to my grandfather, I have more allegiance towards my poor father for whom this story has become the background score of his married life.
From the angry young mother that she once was, my Ma has come a long way. Now, she directs her energy to more profound channels such as Facebook. She has always been more active on Facebook than me or my sister. I admired that until one fine day when I came across a post she had shared. It had her profile picture with some 20 filters applied on it. On the picture, with a dramatic formatting style, it read — “Debasri, you are 70% sexy and 30% cute. You are the best of both worlds.” I immediately called her up to inquire what has she been up to. She nonchalantly responded, “ Chill, I answered a few questions on Facebook and yes, I also shared my profile information. That’s all!” I realized it then that it was time for role reversal. She needed supervised access to the internet. But the best of both worlds is yet to come.
She called me one day and with all honesty asked, “ My Facebook friend, Mr. Chatterjee, keeps sending me ‘Good morning’ and ‘Goodnight’ wishes on Messenger. Do I need to reply every time?”
I asked, “ Now, who is this Chatterjee?”
She got irritated. “ I told you just now! He is my Facebook friend.”
I said, “ I heard you. But who is the man otherwise? How do you know him?”
She proudly replied, “ He had sent me a friend request and I accepted.”
I was a little worried, “ You mean he is a stranger whose request you accepted?”
“ Yes, of course. How can one decline a friend request? That is bad manners!”
I was short of words. While I was internalizing how to find a solution to this, she giggled, “ And you know what, this Mr. Chatterjee has also gone through my profile. He sent me a message saying he would love to hear me sing.”
I remembered a very popular line from school text by Munshi Premchand, “Budhapa bahudha bachpan ka punaragman hua karta hai. (Old age is the reincarnation of childhood)” Not that I dare consider my mother old, not even in my most audacious imagination. But yes, it is definitely time for role reversal!
