September

September 2016 brought home the advantages of the joint family system. I've never been part of this system so can't comment on the merits or demerit of it. Suffice to say that when one has an ill person in the house who needs constant care, it makes a great difference if family members are around, the more the better.

 We had it all down to a system. Two of us took turns at cooking for everyone while one of us sat vigil with the mother. When meals were don't the cooks took to entertaining the mother. A whole month of non stop help can make one get used to it. The mothers recovery was remarkable simply because of the psychological advantages of having all the family around.

Even when the mother in law fell ill and the husband has to run off to attend to his mother,I was relaxed. The sisters provided much needed conversations to help with any lingering sense of stress. Not a month I want to repeat but was I grateful for all the help. Needless to say it's not a happy time when two parents are unwell and they live in different cities.

In our childhood being grounded was a form of punishment but today I've come full circle and in my twilight years I am being grounded by none other than my mother. I grew up in a pre smartphone era and my mom couldn't get hold of me once I left the house. Such freedom is unheard of in these the technological times when parents can track kids in every corner of the globe. Thank god my mother has never managed to get her head around the use of a smartphone and that is the biggest advantage. 

Ever since her stay at a hospital my mother had developed a fear of being alone, understandable in the circumstances too but for her, staying within the four walls of her home is not big deal. Infact,going out is stressful. Me on the other hand needs to go out at least once a day. Over the years I have learnt to outsmart my mother but as we got older together it's not easy to do the things one did in ones youth. Now I worry about her if I am gone too long. I return at exactly the time I've promised to be back and I curtail a lot of my outings. But to be confined to the house day in and day out with no social interaction can drive me crazy, so I start by going to the terrace to water my plants. This takes all of fifteen minutes , but I choose to have a cup of tea with the neighbour, do a spot of weeding, and stretch it to thirty minutes. My next step is to go vegetable shopping or shop for fish. My mother is a great believer in a bargain and fish prices are one thing we all agree on. If fish is going as less expensive as compared to the previous month then we have to stock up. Being gone for an hour or so if it's in the interests of buying fish, is fine by her but if it's a walk that I want to be off to then it's a strict no no. However having said that ,she does get bored of my company soon enough and it's simply a matter of time when I will be able to disappear for longer stretches. Until then I hibernate.