The Story Of my Mother

I stepped out of Qazi and continued my way home, turning in the pol towards

Omi's temple. Of course, we called it Omi's temple because he lived there, but the

official name was the Swamibhakti temple. As I entered the by lane, two people

fought over garbage disposal around the crammed pol.

There are things about my small town neighbourhood that I want to change. In

some ways, it is way behind the rest of Ahmedabad. For one, the whole old city

could be a lot cleaner. The new city across the other side of the Sabarmati river

has gleaming glass and steel buildings, while the old city finds it difficult to get

rubbish cleared on time.

I want to change another thing. I want to stop the gossip theories people come

up with about other people. Like the theory about Omi becoming stupid because

a cricket ball hit him. There is no basis for it, but every pol in Belrampur talks

about it. Or the theory that Ish was thrown out of NDA and did not run away. I

know for a fact that it is not true. Ish cannot handle unquestioned authority, and

even though he was really excited about the army (which was his only option), he

could not stand some Major ordering him around for the next two decades of his

life. So he paid the penalty, cited personal reasons like ailing parents or

something and ran right back to Belrampur.

And of course, what I want to stop the most - the weirdest theory that I became

emotionless the day dad left us. Dad left mom and me over ten years ago, for we

found out he had a second wife across town. As far as I can remember, I was

never good with emotional stuff. I love maths, I love logic and those subjects have

no place for emotion. I think human beings waste too much time on emotions.

The prime example is my mother. Dad's departure was followed by months of

crying with every lady in every pol coming down to sympathise with her. She

spent another year consulting astrologers as to which planet caused dad to move

out, and when would that position change. Thereafter, a string of grandaunts

came to live with her as she could not bring herself to stay alone. It wasn't until I

turned fifteen and understood how the world worked that I could coax her into

opening the snacks business. Of course, my coaxing was part of it, the rest of it

was that all her jewellery was officially sold by then.

Her snacks were great, but she was no businessman. Emotional people make

terrible businessmen. She would sell on credit and buy on cash - the first

mistake a small business can make. Next, she would keep no accounts. The

home spending money was often mixed with the business money, and we

frequently had months where the choice was to buy either rice for our

consumption or black pepper for the papads.