The other day, I decided to spend some quality time with Kamala. With her spending part of the summer with dad, I get to see her only occasionally, and that too only if she's in town.

After two weeks, we were going to be spending a whole evening together....wow! I decide to make it a joint cooking venture. Kamala is always trying to cook and grumbles that I never let her go beyond assembling salads and making sundaes. So I decide to let her expand her horizons.

I mention this to her when I pick her up from daycare.

"You know what, Kamala? Since you're always saying you want to cook, I'm going to make YOU cook today! You'll be making rice, sambar and a vegetable"

"Can I make dessert too?"

"No, we won't have time for that - I have ice cream. But you get to make the rest!"

We get to work. I make her measure rice, wash it, add the required quantity of water and turn on the rice cooker. Then we measure coconut, and spices - she got to roast them (with me keeping close watch), and when they cooled, she got to turn on the blender and grind them. She peeled carrots while I cut the vegetables.

She went through the whole procedure, from soaking the tamarind and extracting the juice, down to adding vegetables to the pan and stirring the dishes: with me standing next to her and instructing, and her doing it. When the food got to the table, I looked at Kamala and said:

"Today YOU cooked our meal. Isn't that nice? From now on, if you're interested, we'll do more cooking together!"

Kamala gives me a somewhat bewildered smile and says: "How come you always talk about food, Amma?"

"Really? I don't always talk about food!"
"You talk about it a lot...."

I'm taken aback. Is that all I have come to represent? A boring mom, who can only think of food? Oh, brother! This is not what I set out to be....

Visions of filmy foodies flash before my eyes. The woman who played Rajnikant's wife in "muLLum malarum" who used to dream of food....When her husband asks her what she wanted on their wedding night, the lady sings:

"niththam niththam nellu chOru
nei maNakkum kaththirikka
nEththu vecha meen kuzhambu enna inikkudhayya
nenjukkuLLa andha mayakkam vandhu mayakkudhayya..."

(Translation: Cooked rice to eat everyday, with eggplant roasted in ghee. Oh...just thinking of yesterday's fish curry makes me swoon in delight)

Naaaah, I shake my head. That's not me....Poor kid must have gotten this idea since I'm always insisting on her eating vegetables, obsess about balanced nutrition and stock up on fruit on every shopping trip, touting their cancer-fighting properties.

And yes, I like to cook and feed people. I am a foodie who likes to try new things, and who enjoys her food....but...but...Hmm. A serious image makeover was needed!

*-*-*

So when I see her next, I have other plans.

"Have you see Wall-E, Kamala?"
"Not yet. Amy's mom said she'll take us to see Wall-E for Amy's birthday. But now she changed her plans..."
"Ok, how about we see Wall-E then?"
"Today?"
"Yes, today! Let's go home, finish dinner quickly, and then go see the film!"
"Yaay!"

We finish dinner in record time, and reach the theater. The movies is only 1 hour and 37 mins, unlike the 3 hour Indian movies, but there are some 30 minutes of trailers and advertisements.

To my surprise, I find myself immensely enjoying these trailers and ads. Normally I would get impatient, and want the theater folks to just get on with the movie. But I smiled happily and enjoyed the previews. Either the trailers were that good, or I have been too much of a hermit lately.....Hmmm. Maybe Kamala had a point.

Wall-E was good. The satire on people trying to buy bigger and bigger things was well-done. Wall-E the robot has been cleaning up the junk left behind by humans for hundreds of years! He has a cockroach for a friend, but pretty much all other life has departed from Earth.

His sincerity in pursuing Eve, the life detector robot from space, is touching. The animations were very good. Kamala smiled and enjoyed all of Wall-E and Eve's antics. She talked about them long after the film ended.

What remained in my mind was the piles and piles of trash shown in the movie - trash that Wall-E patiently makes into blocks, and assembles into towering skyscrapers. Earth's landscape is "littered" with these sky-scrapers, and what a crying shame that is!! If we proceed at this level, this is not far from reality. I decide to be even more vigilant about recycling, and being Earth-friendly.

*-*-*

I'm still amazed at myself for enjoying all those ads. The last couple of years have brought more responsibilities - after my father passed away, there were responsibilities towards my birth family. There were additional responsibilities at work, and Kamala's school load increased as well.

When did I become this total hermit, this mechanical robot? Like Wall-E, I must have been moving from one task to another, trying to fit everything in. I thought I stopped to smell the roses every now and then....but after talking with Kamala it seems like I've only stopped to smell the food :D

Sometimes hard truths come out of the mouths of babes. Close