Always............Sigh!!!

 Let me tell you what happens when people assume something always happens in a particular way. This incident was not a big deal but it made me go through a lot of emotions..

One day my mother wanted some flattened rice (Poha) and she sent me to the shop to get it. There is a shop in quite some distance from my home where such stuff is sold. I went there to find the shop closed. I came back home and told my Mom so.

“How is that? He is always open on Tuesdays. He is closed only on Fridays. He has to be there. May be you did not go all the distance because you felt lazy. He is always there and you better go and get the poha. I am getting late in serving the breakfast”

Now I start to wonder what I am to do. This is so frustrating and I am not very happy. My mind starts on its evil journey where I decide to get back at my Mommy. I decide to use the word always as much as possible in everything to irritate her.

I am standing there wondering when my Mommy says

“Now when are you going to get the poha?”

“I am not going alone. Send someone with me so that you will know I am not lying. You are ALWAYS sending only me on errands.”

So I am sent back to get the poha from the shop that is closed with my sister accompanying me. She loves to catch me red handed doing mischief. I can see the grin and now I am more dedicated to keep her included in the revenge which I would have on my Mommy. Can’t I love them? I think I do and quite a lot. But this feeling of anger and revenge comes over me when something irritates me. When I am pushed by them. I am very sure that I do not want them hurting or in pain ever. As I am walking I start wondering what if the shop keeper has come back? What if he had temporarily closed it? Would I be labeled a liar? But then I relax thinking there is always a way out. I can ask the shopkeeper where he had been a little while ago when I had come down.. Whew!!! What a relief it was.

The shop was closed. So I laugh and say “See, coming all the way down here was a waste of time and energy for both of us.. Mommy is so silly and she does not trust us ( I wanted to include her with me). We are walking back very slow when I saw a kitten shivering in mud water. I love kittens a lot and wanted to have one at home. It was so cute that I was willing to fight hard to keep it with me but then I realized that I need not do it at all LOL. I have someone else who would do all the dirty work for me.

“Babe!!! (my sister’s pet name). Look what a nice little kitty there. I am sure if washed it is going to be all white and shiny. You said you wanted a pet few days ago… ( she wanted a parrot or dog for a pet) how about taking this and cleaning it. Shall we take it with us?”

“Wow! It is so pretty. And poor thing it is suffering so bad. I hate its mother who has left it to die here. Come let us pick it up”

“Wait I saw it and I am going to take it home”

“I am bigger than you and it will be safe with me.. please let me carry it home. Here hold this bag and money. Let us pick it up and take it home and clean it”

“We need to clean it before we show it to others. Or else they will tell us it is stray dirty kitty and we should not bring it in”

Here WE is just another form of YOU. It was meant ‘you’ but said ‘we’ ha ha ha….

I knew with all her pride and I am leader qualities she would do everything all the way till fighting to keep the kitty near the bed where we sleep.

I loved the thought of my mommy waiting sitting on the small stool in the kitchen wondering “Where have they been…???????”

So off we go to a roadside water pump and clean the kitty … most of the work is done by my sister, where as I help by pouring water and making comments. She is soaked and dirty in the process. My mind is working on the two words ‘Always’ and ‘Never’. I want to include them in the coming communication as much as possible and see the effect.

So we enter the house and I give back empty bag and money to Mommy and she is sitting there with the questioning look on the stool in the kitchen. How silly it is that she thought I was lying and we both are coming back with the poha.

“Where is the poha?”

“In the shop which is closed. You ALWAYS doubt me when I say something. You NEVER agree that I do not lie”.

My mommy looked at me to say something but then was shocked to see my sister soaked wet and all dirty with something in her hand.

“Where have you both been to? What is it you are carrying in your hand?”

Now it was my sisters turn to take over and she did it smoothly,“We had been to shop mommy. It was closed. While we were hurrying back home we found a poor kitty who came running to us. We could not help but help it.. look how cute she is”

“ God! you two have been playing around with kitties when I am waiting here to get the breakfast ready. Your daddy will have to leave for factory in about 20 minutes and what am I going to serve him now?”

“It is your fault Mommy. If you had trusted me earlier you would have had lots of time to cook the breakfast for daddy and all of us. You ALWAYS mistrust me. You NEVER believe what I have to say”.

“What is wrong with you Fari? When did I not believe and when did I mistrust you? Stop saying always and never… may be once in while I may feel you are playing a prank on me … Ya Allah! It is so late now to cook anything else”.

My mother was very upset with the confusion of cooking breakfast along with a very dirty daughter with a sparkling clean kitty shivering and meowing pitifully in her arms.

“Both of you take that kitten out and keep it out until I finish my cooking. Don’t disturb me now”.

“But mommy we NEVER have any pets. Why do you ALWAYS refuse to give us any pets. We want to keep the kitty with us please please please…..”

“Shut up. It is too small to survive without its mother. Go there and look for its mother and put it back with her. You don’t want to kill it? Do you?”

My sister was aghast to hear this. “Mommy! This is quite a big kitty and I will take care of it. I am much better than its mother in taking care of it. If I had not seen it, may be some dogs would have gotten to it and torn it into pieces. I want to keep this kitty and I am not going to put it back from where I brought it”.

By then my dad asked mom if his breakfast was ready because he was getting late for office.

My Mom told us to keep the kitty and rushed to fix something quickly for dad who was getting impatient.He usually spent a lot of time getting ready for the office and then hurried up with remaining tasks. I at times wondered why he spent so much of time grooming himself every morning where as it took my Mommy lesser time to get ready to go anywhere.

My dad walked in asking “Is the breakfast ready yet? I have to leave in few minutes”.

“I am having trouble fixing something for you today. These girls took so much time to come back from the shop and they did not bring anything. In a minute I will roll some rotis for you”. 

My Mommy is a excellent cook and she had rotis and egg omelets ready for Dad who was mumbling and grumbling at the same time. He did not like cats much and if he saw the kitty when he was in a shitty mood then there was no chance of us having it.. but if they threw the kitty out I was sure they had to throw my sister out too. Once she decides to help an animal then there is no stopping her. Her sympathies are very strong and it can take away her mind and stunt the working of her sense organs. She cannot think straight, cannot hear the reason, cannot see the facts and loses her fear. Anyway we both hid out of Daddy’s sight until he went to office. Then I had an idea flashing in my mind. I had watched people bottle feeding babies and when my little brother was born I wanted to feed him too. But mommy never allowed me to feed him because she was afraid I may choke him or something. I don’t blame her because there were times when I would get lost in thoughts of God knows what and would forget what I am actually doing. So here I saw the chance of bottle feeding this kitty. My sister beamed with happiness when I told her that we should bottle feed the kitty and we both broke our piggy banks. To the horror we found that someone had been tampering with them. We had way less money than we actually put in it. But this was no time for playing police so off we rushed to the shop to buy a feeding bottle. We had a little argument over the color.. my sister wanted red and I wanted yellow one but finally she won the argument by putting some extra cash. We rushed back home and my sister slowly went up to my mother who was now busy getting the lunch ready. It was amazing how my mother was engrossed with cooking most of the time.. and when she was not cooking something she was feeding someone. My sister asked in a very pleasant tone

“Mommy can I have a glass of milk?”

“Off course Beti ( daughter) .. so finally my lovely daughter realized milk is good for her hmmm”

“Mommy I want to feed the kitty”

“Oh God! Is it still alive. It must be lucky to survive you two demon girls. Have you been picking it up and bothering it much?”

“No Mommy we have made it sleep in the basket on an old sweater”

“Whose old sweater?”

“Grandma’s old sweater. Fari said that is the best one for our kitty”.

“Off course she would say that… I can almost hear her saying that and I can also hear your grandma shrieking and making a fuss out of this .. OH! What else for today?”

“Don’t worry Mommy. I will tell Naani that I took her sweater and please let me keep it. She won’t say anything”

My sister was right. She was my grandmother’s pet and she would forgive her few murders, where as she would not forgive me one dirty look in her direction.

So she came back with the milk and we both took turns in feeding the kitty. We had to decide on a name and we decided to call her either Rosy (because of her pink nose) or Julie for some unknown reason. Finally we ended up calling her Julie because my sisters teacher was Rosy and we did not want the cat to share the teachers name.