A Promise

Holding her frail hand I mutter silent prayers. No particular image of God comes in my mind. I just see her face and the pain written on it. I stroke her hands lightly wanting to put my hands across her temple and kiss it lightly. But I want her to sleep, so I just keep my hands on her and say silent prayers.

I stare at her little frame of body and try to remember the nine months of my stay in that warm womb inside her. I try to visualize a tiny dot that became me in that womb, I fail miserable. But I know I must have spend my time inside her kicking her. She throws her feet in a slight kicking motion in her sleep. Can she actually hear my thoughts I wonder. Maybe!

When I was inside her did I hear her thoughts? Maybe!

Today watching her gives me a different feeling. Just few days ago we were in the hospital ward. I was busy with my word game when I heard the shrill cry of the nurse on duty,"zangmo, you doing my work?" I lifted my head to see my mother extending her hand to pull the tangled IV line of the patient next to her. Although the Nurse meant to rebuke her I heard a soft reproach that sounded like affectionate cooing. I was proud of my mother. Although in pain herself she could think of helping her neighbour.

For five nights, I spent my time ferrying patients with dangling urine and other bags to toilet and for their usual walks. At times holding on to pus filled bags of strangers and holding their hands walking to the toilet, I wondered why don't I cringe with yuck! this is dirty feeling? But looking at my mom, I knew where that helping nature came from.

Its bath time. I am scrubbing her lithe body and I ask her about the first time she gave bath to me." I was scared the first time I put you in the tub," she smiles weakly. I understand what she is trying to explain. First-born is always a difficult task. But giving bath to my mom I felt a sense of fulfillment fleet, the same one that you feel when you give bath to your first born for the first time without fear.

We sit silently yet reading eachother's thoughts. We sit talking to eachother, sharing basic dreams shared by a woman with another woman. We watch TV shows wishing it would make our hearts merry. We eat dishes that has been seasoned with love we feel for eachother. We finally put our heads on the pillow for it's dark outside. I curl beside her and imagine my tiny body curled up in her womb. I uncurl myself, stretch my limbs, hold out my hands and gently place it on her wishing every pain from her body would come to me with my hand touching her.

A warm trickle reminds me I need to make a promise, sincere and genuine...So, with my hands still placed on her hands, I silently divert my attention from my prayers and make a promise,"dear mom, I shall always strive to be like you, truthful and good to all." I allow the tears to mingle with the silent vow so that it seals the honesty with which I make this pledge.

Women! Women!

Quite a long time ago I was an ardent follower of the saas-bahu serials. It always was a yummy thought provoking half an hour of the grinding relationship between two women in a single man's life, his mother and wife. Teary eyed I would cry at the plight of the poor daughter in law who always had to submit to the whims of her always in the arrogant role mother in law. And in another hour, in a different serial I would be scoffing at the vamp of a daughter in law who treated her mother in law with sheer disrespect.

Indeed this relationship between two women can be really tricky. Only a woman can understand a woman is what I always feel but when it comes to a mother in law and daughter in law I guess the case gets topsy turvy. Weird!Maybe it has all to do with women and their role as a home manager. I guess there can only be one queen in a beehive, what else could be the reason for the tussle for power.

I was cleaning dal, squatted on the floor facing my three friends. Deki who lives with her hubby's family remarked," let your mother in law be the boss.Always!" she said the 'always' too loud. Maybe she wanted to put stress in the importance of that word. She narrated an anecdote of how she lets her mother in law be the boss:

She was watching Druk star and seeing her enthusiasm in it I went to cook the dal that she had soaked for hours. I started cutting the onions, garlic and ginger. My style of preparing dal is to fry all these first and then add the dal and then put it to cook it in pressure cooker. I had been in the kitchen for about twenty minutes when my mother in law appeared in the kitchen. "Mathang, pressure cooker tey jik mala ko"

Seeing her dal still drowned in the bowl filled with water, she exclaimed,"yala, why didn't you put the dal on stove yet?" I explained my recipe. "No, no.." she shook her head. "you have to cook the dal first in the pressure cooker. Fry the onions and garlic in another pan and add at the end. "I see," I nodded and walked away to watch her unfinished Drukstar while she started putting the dal in the cooker.I allowed her to cook it in her own style.

"That's how you give the upper hand to her" Deki explained. But the way she explained had us , her audience, rolling on the floor.
"I never come on her path," another friend added. On my way back from the office, I always make sure to take one glance of my mother in law, if she is sullen, I walk to my room quietly and stay there. If she is smiley then I quickly change and sit with her." Roars of female laughter filled the room. "ong ni, on the days when she is extremely happy I even take my tweezers and uproot her grey hair!" Tears started streaming down our cheeks.We laughed holding our aching tummy.

Definitely this is one relationship that will never be understood or interpreted in plain terms. Who knows while we the daughter in laws sit talking about how not to cornered by our big boss, somewhere in some houses there might be team of mother in laws plotting how to keep their daughter in laws in proper shape.

Well! Women! Women! Who can understand them??