Aloo Gobi for the Choosy

The traffic was terrible, my regular breezy 3 hour ride had turned into a 4 hour grueling, blinded by the rain adventure. But it was great to come home.

With great pride and emphatic display I showed my mom the aloo gobi and the chicken I had so arduously made over the week that I was away, and thankfully to much surprise, she was impressed! It was quite a change from the last time I brought home something I’d cooked when she flat out in her matter of fact voice-lovingly declared that my food was "crap." This time however, she was impressed. Or so I think.

But, yes, there’s always a but. After her initial display of hesitant pride and her desire to express to me her unfettered support and her possible selfish desire to futher my interests in the culinary arts so she could add this to my "shaadi resume" to talk about over ’casual chai’ with her aunty dost, or maybe so that she could finally relinquish her mother hen duties of cooking
and let somebody else take over, she relented from her too perfect
enthusiasm.

She then closed her eyes for a moment as she took a bite, letting the spices roll over her tongue presumably, as I waited in quiet anticipation, she thought for a moment, finally opened her eyes and disclosed in a quiet voice to me: It’s good. That’s it, I thought?

It’s good? I kept quiet, knowing that the tide had not yet fully surfaced. So, I just waited, with my fake no teeth smile plastered to my face, hands clasped to my side. She finally went on to say, as I knew she would, that my food was good, and then it came, the ominous but, it was good but, a little too masaleey, I had possibly used too many cloves (explaining that curiously pungent aroma that now permeates my entire car over my 4 hour drive home) and maybe I should think about cutting my chicken into smaller pieces next time?

She then told me that I should learn from her when attempting to cook, that way my food will be "according to their tastes." So, when it was over, I nodded politely, and took it with a smile. I never shy away from constructive criticism. I couldn’t help but think what is this? Subtle Big Brother subconcious messages? I was confused.

After years of nagging and ominous reminders that if I didn’t learn how to
cook I would be considered an uncultured specimen of the female desi
species, all of a sudden her eyes were filled with an odd sense of sadness as she looked from me to the chicken and then back to me, I couldn’t help but be befuddled by her not so pleased reaction. Maybe it’s just a mother’s desire to keep her children close to her with these subliminal messages that they will always need a slight peppering of futher thought here and a pinch of further improvement there, and hence, keep them from becoming too self reliant and god forbid-"moving away"?

Is this constant dissaproval a form of love? A persistent reminder that we will always need them, no matter how old we get and no matter how well we think we can cook or how well we think we can drive, there will always be that glimmer of doubt, that shadow of apprehension reminding us of, what we could be?

Hmmm...I can only wonder. On that note, as I toss my newly purchased
bag of cloves into the trash, I trudge on. Through the slick and the grease, ode to the Mums that will never cease until we have reached unattainable perfection!