A Little Bit Sweet and a Little Bit Sour

“There she goes once again,” Poornima thought as she heard her mother-in-law Janaki throwing vessels around in the kitchen.

That was Poornima’s wakeup call or rather alarm of sorts every other morning. Though she was wide awake now, thanks to those rattling sounds from the kitchen, she refused to get up, just to spite Janaki.

“She can’t sleep and she won’t let anyone else sleep either.” Poornima thought stifling a yawn. Poornima was an owl. She slept late, many a time, after midnight, but found it excruciatingly difficult to get up early. She had been like that right from her childhood days.

This trait of Poornima has been a bone of contention between Janaki and Poornima. Janaki, like many people from her generation was a lark. She slept early, woke up early and held all owls in contempt.

Once she was up and about, Poornima was fast on her feet. She would finish her part of the work in the kitchen, go after her son Sachin to get him ready for the school, get herself ready to go to work well on time. Many a time, her husband Ravi would still be in the bed, until Poornima pestered him to get ready for work.

What Poornima failed to understand was how was it that Janaki tolerated her son’s and even her grand-son’s late sleeping habits while she cribbed so much about hers.

“Let him rest. He is tired after working so hard during the week” she would say when she tried to wake her husband up during the weekends.

“What about me? I am also working so hard. And I work for six days of the week whereas he has a five day week schedule” she would fume with this thought. Though she is normally an outspoken spoken, she restrained herself from uttering these words out loud in front of her mother-in-law.

Poornima had been feeling quite low-key since the last evening. As she got up from the bed, she felt a little bit dizzy. 

When she came out of the bedroom slowly, she heard her mother-in-law grumbling over the phone “Today is Ugadi (Telugu New Year) and am I the only one to be celebrating our New Year or what?”

“There. She is at it once again. Complaining about me to her daughter. And it’s not even 6 in the morning” an upset Poornima fretted within.

That’s when it hit her. A feeling of nausea. She ran to the bathroom in the hall and threw up into the wash basin.

“What happened Poornima?” Janaki yelled from the kitchen.

“I will call you later” Janaki hung up the phone saying these words.

When Poornima emerged out of the bathroom, Janaki was standing outside with a napkin. She felt Poornima’s forehead with the back of her palm and sighed with relief saying “No fever. Thank God.”

As Poornima slouched on the sofa feeling drained after a couple of more visits to the bathroom, Janaki thrust a glass into her hands saying “Drink this Omu water. It will do you good.”

Poornima gulped it down at a go, and crashed back onto the sofa.

“Don’t bother about cooking today. I will do it.” Janaki said.

Poornima tried to object, but Janaki would hear none of it.

“You try to rest right now. And you may want to skip breakfast. Keeping an empty stomach for a while is the best medicine for your indigestion.”

A relieved Poornima didn’t realise when she fell into deep slumber on the sofa.

When she woke up after a couple of hours she was startled to find a thin bed sheet covering her. Smelling something good from the kitchen, she went in to find Janaki busy at the gas frying some tasty “vadas”, while Sachin was lingering around trying to help her with some chores.

Feeling simultaneously guilty and jealous, she went in with an intention to lend a helping hand.

Janaki yelled in that harsh tone of hers “Don’t do anything without taking bath on the Ugadi day and spoil the entire year”.

Poornima took a step back as though she got electrocuted. Turning back, she stormed into her bedroom.

Feeling refreshed after her bath, she joined Janaki in the kitchen. Pooja corner lay to one side of the kitchen, where they kept the framed deities and lit the Diya every day. She found Janaki busy doing pooja with offerings of all the dishes she had prepared to the Gods. She gestured at Pooja to join her. Soon Janaki called out for her son and grandson for the aarati. 

As the brightness of the aarati illuminated Janaki’s face, Poornima could see that her eyes were sunk deep into the sockets with black rings having been formed underneath her eyes. She realized Janaki might have hardly slept the previous night as she got up as early as 3 AM to get things readied. A wave of gratitude filled Poornima as she observed the emaciated body of Janaki that held a strong spirited soul within.

“Now, all of you have this Ugadi Pachadi (potion)” thrusting a small bowl of translucent liquid that was made out of neem flowers, jiggery, tamarind, raw mango, salt and chillies into each one’s hands. “Just like life has sorrow and happiness, this pachadi is sweet as well as sour” she continued.

As soon as Sachin took a sip of the potion, he made a face saying “Ugh, It is more sour than sweet, Nanamma (grandmother).”

“Too much of sweet is not good. You remember what your dentist uncle said? Eating too many chocolates gives you bad teeth. And Neem flowers are good for your health though they are sour.”

“Sometimes in life too sweetness comes wrapped up in sour” Poornima thought as she stared at Janaki with fondness.