I am feeling very strange to think that, rice is boiling over the gas,
‘Tandoori chicken’ is being grilled in microwave,
And I am here doing my makeup in front of mirror shamelessly,
And that is for, I am going to meet my x-boyfriend after fifteen years!
A forty plus women growing to be ‘old’, is it convenient for her?
But I am getting ready Anindya.
I am doing my makeup with patience, with lots of care,
With that care I am managing this family for 15 years.
That care I have given to hide you in a hidden place of my heart,
That care I have given to my children Dipan and Riya,
That care… I have tried to give my husband Abhishek,
But I’m getting ready today with much more than that care.
In kitchen rice is boiling in a big pot, ‘Tandoori chicken’ is being
grilled in microwave,
and I… a woman of 40 years trying to hide the shame of putting lipstick on lips, decorating eyes with liner, from her daughter’s makeup box.
I have become so called ‘old’. That much old one can become in 15 years of married life,
My son is in 10th standard and daughter in 7.
My hairs are white just beside the line of red ‘sindoor’,
Black ring like dark circles hug my eyes.
You can say me an 80 kg of old fat dump who has no value other than running a happy family!
How are you?
I know you till look like that much handsome you were in college,
Your bushy hair, your French beard,
I know you are young enough, because men never become ‘old’,
As my husband too!
Till now in my daughter’s world he is the hero.
Sometimes my son says “mamma, beside pa you look like his mother,
Why not you join a gym?”
In kitchen rice is boiling over gas, ‘Tandoori chicken’ has been grilled in microwave, the devil clock is running restlessly,
When I will go to gym Anindya?
Sometimes I think, not chicken, I am being grilled, the thousand of 40 years ‘old’ women is being grilled, and from that smell a happy family is moving on.
But sill I forget everything,
When the calling bell rings at four thirty, and two little innocent faces
come and hug me by telling “mamma Tiffin…”
still I forget all the pains when a tired person comes from his day long office and demands for a cup of tea!
I forget my existence Anindya,
Because I have made this world with my own hand out of my identity,
After fifteen years I am preparing myself to meet you,
Is it a good job for a 40 years old house wife to go for a meeting with her x-boyfriend?
Rice is boiling in kitchen, ‘Tandoori chicken’ is being grilled in microwave,
But still I am getting ready with proper decoration to meet you;
I don’t know whether you really could recall me or not;
How will I introduce myself?
Your fifteen years back x-girlfriend?
Or the responsible mother coming to attain guardian call of you student got lowest marks in your subject?
Now tell me Anindya what should me my ‘IDENTITY’?