About Time

 “Ma!” I was getting tired of arguing with her. “I don’t want to get involved with this now.” A joke at the family tailor’s boutique earlier that day had turned my afternoon sour. The Aunty had suggested that it was ‘about time’ that I left my parents’ house. Although Ma had responded calmly at the time, she was quiet the entire drive back home and I had braced myself for the storm to come. Sometimes, it even seemed that just like me, my parents were conflicted – about letting me realize my career dreams and worrying about when to make ‘that’ decision. Age ofcourse is just a number, but it doesn’t stop or slow down for anyone. So, when Ma had asked me about my thoughts on that comment made at the boutique, I had told her ‘not to worry’. Unfortunately for me, those three words flipped her switch. 

“Why? Do you have someone?” she asked. 

I looked at her, hurt. “Really? You think I’m already out of that mess?” 

“I just don’t want anything good to slip by, while we have our heads turned some other way.” 

I decided to humor her, “And how does dad feel about this?” 

“Do not bring your father into this!” 

“Exactly! Because you know he won’t entertain this.” I wanted a background audience to go “ooh!” right about then. 

“True, but it isn’t because he’s not worried like me, he just doesn’t want it to affect you or your career.” 

“Ma!” I was getting tired of arguing with her. “I don’t want to get involved with this now.” 

“I get that you want to make your career strong, but I’m telling you, if we find a good person who’ll love you the way we love you, and the family is educated enough to understand the pressures of a PhD scholar’s life, we will get you engaged.” 

“Fine! Just don’t blame me if I don’t find enough time to call up my future mother-in-law and ask her how she is when I’m typing up my thesis.” And with that, I walked away, correction; stormed off, to my room upstairs. 

My phone was ringing and I had picked up the call from my supervisor just in time. It was another load of work – this time a presentation to be prepared and an article to be re-written and checked for plagiarism; all within the next nine hours. I sighed as I looked at the paper I had just scribbled the instructions on. ‘Here we go again!’ I almost said aloud. 

I placed the paper on my desk and went to switch on the fan, grabbing my charged headphones on the way. Music was one of my stress-busters and sometimes, it was amazing how quickly I got things done when I locked myself up with pop music blasting in my ears. 

A sudden wind from the widow blew the paper onto the floor. I picked it up and it straightened in my hand the wrong side up. I frowned. I had grabbed the paper from the shelf in a panic, when I’d taken the call – it was actually a paper that had been sticking out from within a book; one of Ma’s office diaries from last year when she was the head-mistress of a primary school. The paper was the second mid-terminal mathematics question paper. Scanning it, my eyes stuck to a four letter word. I swallowed. I had been struggling to wade through an ugly breakup last February; it was probably around the same time that this was typed. I recalled a conversation Ma and I had on the phone back then. 

“Just remember that it was a horrible chapter. It isn’t the whole book.” 

“I know Ma,” I had said. 

“Will you be okay?” she asked. 

“I’ll be fine,” I had said, “Don’t worry. You just focus on helping that weak kid!” 

Those three words again. I shook my head, ‘No wonder she’d flipped,’ I said to myself. She was my mother, and like all mothers, she was going to worry all the more, even when I had told her to divert her attention to something else. I took a deep breath, ‘I had to apologize, I had to be honest with her about what I wanted at the moment and I had to give her a hug.’ 

As I went down to find my mother, the question that had pulled at me came back into my mind. ‘Solve: Nita had 36 candies. She gave 15 of them away. How many does she have now?’