Amma Knows Best

by Sumitra Singam

“Want some breakfast, kutti?” I ask.

Her appetite has been so low. Dr. Nguyen even thought she had an eating disorder. Vidhya, who could eat twenty laddus in one sitting!

She nods, so I make her favourite rice and lentil pancake. The place fills with the earthy smell of the dosa, with a sweet note of ghee. It doesn’t take long for my aromatic cooking to fill this seventy square metre space. It was all I could afford after the divorce.

We eat together, then I fetch the lehyam from the fridge. She’s refused to take it the last few weeks.

“Oh, not that awful stuff, Amma,” she says.

When I was a child, we had a spoonful of the ayurvedic paste every day, whether we were sick or not. “It’s good for you, kutti.”

“Well, I don’t think I need it today.”

I put the jar back in the fridge. I can try again if she relapses.

Vidhya gathers her school bag and we walk down the stairs of the apartment building into the autumn air. I like to run my hands along the rusting railing - the rough bumps remind me that I don’t have much, just my daughter and this apartment. Outside, the galahs are quarrelling in the trees, their loud chatter piercing the balmy air. The minty smell of eucalyptus perfumes my nose. It is all Vidhya has known, this Australian landscape. Every morning I compare it to the rush of life that marked my childhood in Chennai. My walk to school was punctuated by the calls of the tea- and coffee-wallahs, the constant beeping of auto-rickshaws, the rounded Tamil syllables yelled across courtyards. Amma would take me to the temple for a quick blessing; then, plaited and bowed and sheathed like a present, she’d deliver me to the nuns who singled me out for my darker skin, for the vermillion mark of heathen Gods on my forehead. In the afternoons, the nuns returned ripped packaging to my mother, the gift inside removed.

“Bye, Amma,” Vidhya says at the gates of her Australian high school. Here, the teachers clasp me by the hand and ask how Vidhya is, what they can do to support her. “Bye kutti,” I say, my voice thick.

The day stretches ahead of me with Vidhya at school. I gave up my job as a bank teller last year. Bhaskar never questioned the bills I sent him. The more he paid the less guilt he felt. It was a simple decision - Vidhya needed me.

It had started in a vague enough way – headaches, the odd tummy upset. She’d come to me clutching her middle, saying, “Amma, something’s wrong with my body.” I would pull her to me, stroking her hair, singing the Tamil lullabies of both our childhoods. The feel of her nestling into me was so familiar. My body curved naturally around her need, around my duty.

When I took her to Dr Nguyen, she was sympathetic at first, but soon grew impatient with our frequent attendances with some vague new symptom – constipation, or hair loss, or tiredness. Her interest piqued when Vidhya started losing weight, but when the tests came back normal, she started talking of stress. She suggested an antidepressant. I fought that for a while, but after months of Vidhya coming to me with wild eyes, her breath caught in her throat, pointing at some Google page about an exotic disease on her laptop, I relented.

I am to blame really, for Vidhya’s health anxiety. She was five months old, we were on the floor together, on her pink and grey blanket – the one Selvi had crocheted. Vidhya had picked something up and was examining it. One minute she was waving her chubby fingers about, the next her face was turning blue. I think I stopped breathing too, in that panicked moment. I just acted on instinct, turning her upside down over my knee and hitting her between the shoulder blades. The little marble flew out onto the blanket, making a grey mark like a comet. I turned her back over, and she stared at me blindly for a minute before wailing with her entire being. I’d never been so happy to hear her cry. I held her to me, whispering, “Amma is always here for you, kutti; I will always protect you.”

When Bhaskar came home that evening, he dandled her on his knee for a bit, but soon gave her back, as he had done since she was born. He ate in silence then spent the evening in front of his laptop. He didn’t ask how the day had gone, so I never told him. I never told him that there was a split second where his daughter could have died, and I had saved her.

Somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to wash the blanket. It’s on Vidhya’s bed, with the comet stain still on it. Her lucky star. I’ve been careful with her ever since, even with a scraped knee.

Finished with the breakfast dishes, I go into Vidhya’s room. It is always a mess, a swirl of scarves, lip gloss and jewellery. Maybe that’s normal if you’re fourteen, but I was never allowed this chaos in my room. She has always loved dressing up. When she was little, she would go to my camphor chest and choose a sari for me to drape around her body. She’d pick a bindi from my dressing table, always pink with sparkly jewels on it, and place it carefully over her third eye. “Amma, this is to remind me of my name,” she’d say – Vidhya, meaning wisdom. I’d smile and pick up the kajal stick – sent specially by Selvi since they aren’t available here in Melbourne. I’d line her eyes with the black kohl, flicking up the corners like a cat. “My Indian beauty,” I’d say. We’d play Bollywood songs and dance around the living room. I remember my mother scolding me when I used her kajal, “You need to be careful, Rukmini, those sticks are not good for you.” Ma knew nothing of connections, of how to bond with a daughter eager for love. It was the servant, Selvi who welcomed me home from school, held me, kissed the yellowing bruises. She’d make me pakoras and vadai, and serve them steaming with coconut chutney. She is the one I call every week, and send pictures of my daughter to.

As the clock winds its way down, I think of Vidhya at school. I am happy that she can go regularly now, but I do look forward to her coming home.

Her key rattles in the lock at three-thirty, and I look up to see her petite frame, wavy black hair held back with a band. Her eyes, oval, with a thicket of dark eyelashes, are bright.

“Good day, kutti?”

“So awesome, Amma! I sat with Imogen at lunch.”

A new friend, I note.

Taking the plate of hot bhaji I’ve made for her, she joins me at the table.

“I’ll get Thai for dinner?” I ask. Our ritual on Fridays.

She leans back in her chair. “Actually, I was hoping to go to Imogen’s, just to hang out.”

“Oh,” I say. “Of course! That’ll be much more fun than watching Poirot with your mother.”

“Imogen’s mum said I could stay for dinner and she’d drop me back after?” she says, concentrating on her plate. There’s just a slick of oil left on it. Nothing wrong with her appetite now.

“That’s great, kutti.”

She moves around the table and pulls me into a hug. Her curves push against mine; she’s no longer concave where I’m convex. We don’t fit together as well. It is a small grief, and maybe one every mother has to bear. My mother must have felt it too - she surprised me with her tears at my wedding. When the matchmaker introduced me to Bhaskar, all I heard was my ticket out – an engineer, in Melbourne. “Sounds far away,” Ma had said. I just nodded.

Vidhya pulls against my embrace, bringing me back. “I should get ready for Imogen’s, Amma.”

“Yes kutti, sorry.”

I watch her walk down the corridor to her room. Even her posture has changed. Her steps are definite, vital. Just a few months ago she had flitted around the house like a trapped moth, seeking a way out. One morning she had come out of her room, the night’s lost sleep cloaking her eyes in blue shadows. Her wavy black hair was dishevelled, like she had been running her hands through it.

“I think I have lead poisoning, Amma.” She could barely breathe the words.

She put her laptop in front of me, pointing to the symptoms, “Headache, fatigue, memory problems, weight loss, constipation, it’s all there!”

I didn’t know what to say. Dr Nguyen had advised me not to indulge her worries, so I just held her until her panic blew over. The next day she had moved on to Lyme Disease.

It’s been a while since she had an episode like that. She’s getting stronger, my girl. Soon she will find her wings and fly off into the Australian sun.

She comes out of her room smiling, her energy lively.

“Have a wonderful evening with your friend, kutti. Remember, just call if you need me and I’ll come straight away.”

“Yes, Amma,” she says, distracted by a message on her phone. She flings a wave at me and heads off. I shut the door and face the empty apartment, only the dust motes for company.

When Vidhya comes home later that night, she flies through the house, yammering away, “We had such a great time! Imogen’s family is so nice! We had pizza for dinner!”

  I purse my lips. “There is food if you are hungry, kutti.”

“Amma, Immy is heading into the city on Sunday. I thought I might go with her?”

Another outing, and so soon. “What about homework? You’ve missed so much school with being sick, I don’t want you falling behind.”

“I’ll do it all tomorrow. There isn’t much, just maths.”

What is the right thing for a mother to say? I see the gleam of hope in her eyes, that she might be able to slot back into her friendship circle, that she might have a normal Australian adolescence. Isn’t that what I want for her?

“Okay, kutti. If you finish all your homework.”

On Sunday evening she comes back bright, her cheeks crisp with the wind. She tells me of the dresses they tried, the food they ate, the movie they watched, the size of the tub of popcorn they shared. It sounds so different from my youth. I went to the cinema once with Selvi, sitting in the stalls next to her, a newspaper screw of masala peanuts in my hands. It was a Rajinikanth movie, and the crowd was wild, jumping from their seats, calling out for the woman who had spurned him to be beaten. Selvi didn’t notice my frozen face, my eyes seeing nothing of the music and drama on the screen. When I got home, Amma said “I told you not to go. Only barbarians go to the cinema.”

I shake away the memory and put soupy sambar, tart tamarind balanced with pungent fenugreek, and spongy idli rice cakes in front of her. She’s still talking, animated, waving her hands about.

“I can see you had a good time,” I say. “Now eat. It’s been a big weekend.”

Vidhya says to me breezily, as if she had almost forgotten, “I’ll go to Immy’s again after school tomorrow, ok Mum?”

“I’m Amma to you,” I say. It’s hard holding on to our identity here. “And maybe Imogen could come to ours? Her mother will be wanting a break.”

I can see her hesitating, trying to find a way out.

“I do need to meet her if you’re going to spend all this time with her,” I say.

“Okay Amma, I’ll bring her with me.”

When the girls turn the key in the lock on Monday afternoon, the smell of pakoras assails them – hot oil, earthy besan flour, and the high notes of onion and chilli.

“Come, girls, you must be hungry.”

“Wow, Mrs. Sharma! That smells amazing!”

I smile at Imogen. They’re the same age, but she towers over Vidhya. She’s sturdy, with well-developed calves. I remember Vidhya saying that she is a runner. She has a clean face, open and wide, with smiling grey eyes. She takes up a lot of room in this small place.

“You don’t have to -” Vidhya says as her friend takes a pakora.

“Are you kidding? I love Indian food!”

“See Vidhya, not all of us are embarrassed by our culture.”

She rolls her eyes at me and sits, taking two pakoras.

The girls natter about their day, about this teacher and that, about their homework, and about the school track team.

“I’d love to try out, Ma,” Vidhya says, looking at me.

Imogen nods enthusiastically. Vidhya on the track team? Five foot two inches? Barely a hundred pounds?

“What would that involve, kutti?”

“Training in the mornings, right Immy?”

“Yeah, every day except the weekend.”

“Sounds like a lot,” I say.

“I mean I’m not in yet, but -”

“You’d be a shoo-in Vidhya; we haven’t got enough girls. Coach’d love training you.”

“We’ll have to see what Dr Nguyen says, Vidhya.”

Imogen looks at her friend, confused.

“Oh, it’s not…I mean I’m not sick, so -”

“No, not physically sick, kutti.”

Vidhya snaps her head at me, eyes blazing. Imogen doesn’t know where to look. I’ve put my foot in it, I suppose. But what if she becomes totally focused on running and all her anxieties start again?

“Let’s go to my room, Immy.”

“Umm…okay…” she says, grabbing a handful of pakoras as Vidhya drags her down the corridor.

After Imogen leaves, I go to Vidhya’s room. She is at her desk, typing on her laptop, her eyes firmly averted from the door where I stand. There is heat radiating from her, waves of fire.

“Vidhya –” I begin, voice turning down at the edges, placating.

She whips around, her face a knot of anger. “How could you embarrass me like that!”

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you, kutti; I was just thinking of what is best for you.”

“How come you always get to decide what is best for me! I’m fourteen now, surely I can make some choices for myself!”

“Yes, of course, Vidhya. But you do need to be more careful than others. You might be setting yourself up to fail.”

“I think that is exactly what you want. For me to fail!”

The tongues of flame singe me at my heart, at my womb that carried her for nine months. It is a full minute before I can gather my voice. “I’ve only ever wanted the best for you, kutti.”

Moisture collects in her eyes. “I just want to be normal, Amma.”

I pull my beautiful, confused girl into a hug. “It’s okay, kutti, I understand. I know this is important to you. So how about we make a deal?”

She looks at me, wiping the tears away.

“Start taking the lehyam for me, and you can do track team, okay?”

Her smile takes up her whole face, and she hugs me tight. “Thank you, Amma! It’s a deal!” She turns back to her homework, and I head to the kitchen to make a fresh batch of lehyam.

It is a centuries-old recipe, taught to me by Selvi who coiled her white widow’s sari around her, and tucked in all her mothering wisdom into its folds.

The spices murmur to me of connections, and family, and home. Pepper, sharp and melodic to sing to the soul. Dry ginger, smelling of the ocean. Cardamom, with the desert’s bitter dust in it. Amla fruit, Indian gooseberries, give off a tart and pungent smell as they boil down. A generous helping of jaggery, raw sugar to balance the tastes. Ghee to bind it all together. The mixture bubbles and spits, smelling of my homeland – like diesel, and cow dung, and ash.

And yes, my secret ingredient. Just a little shaving of the kajal stick. Maybe an extra pinch today. The lead in it is negligible really. It won’t do any long-term harm. She needs a little dose now, my Vidhya. So wilful. Just to remind her how much she needs me. Amma knows best, kutti.

***END***