Dal Makhni and Dosai
Moving away from home 10 years ago felt unreal. Things were simple back then. The parents would come to drop off at your accommodations. The mother would neatly arrange her daughter's room while hiding tears , and the father would be waiting outside probably talking to the hostel warden about a 1001 things. There was no awkward silences. Emotions were dealt with and we cried our hearts out. The mother would be more nervous than her offspring, constantly worrying about her child being left alone in the world. Back then, we did not have mother child memes to laugh about. There was no constant reminder from the social media about the ways your mother would behave in regular situations, which led to believe that only our mothers were special. We could not relate with another family, because we never discussed about it. We lived in our own world, reminiscent of the crazy ways that we have been brought up with.
With the onset of global connectivity, things seem less personal now. Every child can relate to a behavior happening somewhere else. The memes are generic and we all LMAO about it for the fear of being less cool. Somehow, we seem to have closed our personal memories in a box and solved in a corner, trying to become one with the generic crowd.
We do miss our mothers now, not because we haven't met them. It's because a meme has reminded us of them.
With a global pandemic, we all are catching up with our families. Near or far, we do feel we are more connected. But are we? Would a couple of months of video calls compensate 10 years of absence. Is that really your mom at the other end of the call ? Or another mother who is trying to put on a happy face, so that her offspring doesn’t worry. Can we really substitute 10 years of absence with two calls in a day? Should we really give ourselves credit?