Too much of thoughts were going through my head. I had enough of Amma blaming me for everything. I wanted to talk to Amma why is she blaming me for everything? Why isn’t she blaming Maria? Why is she not asking Maria to stay with us? Why is she allowing Maria to go out with George? How could she live as a mother and not fight for her daughter? but I couldn’t, because the land lady was sitting next to me and was busy offering words of wisdom to me.
“Nina, you must take responsibility. Your mother needs you. How can you expect her to raise 2 daughters on her own. You know your father is irresponsible. Otherwise, which man would just leave his kids and wife like this and disappear?”
I knew my father is irresponsible, I didn’t need the land lady to tell me that. I felt, she had no business to talk bad about my father. He is still my father. I was getting annoyed with her for speaking bad about my father. But the irony was, the land lady was telling the truth. My father was indeed irresponsible and I knew that. Somehow it still hurt me when a stranger spoke badly about him. May be because I always believed that, if Amma was a good wife, Appa wouldn’t have abandoned us, would he? It was all Amma’s fault wasn’t it? She never made any effort to make her marriage work anyway, so why blame Appa. From the back of my head the sensible one asked
‘You do remember all those times your father physically hurt your mother, you do remember the time he threw her out of the house’
I remembered each and every thing. But somebody had to take the blame. It was not humanly possible to blame God for all the calamities in my family.
“Nina, you should take your father’s role” Landlady spoke.
I wanted to ask her
Father’s role? Why should I? Why the hell should I take my father’s role? What about Maria? Isn’t she the oldest? Isn’t she working and earning an income? Isn’t she the smartest of the Thomas family? Why isn’t anyone asking her to take the place left vacant by my wonderful father? I don’t want to take any more responsibilities. I wanted to be free of my family. I wanted to live my life and not worry about my family.
I felt there is no point arguing with the land lady. She has already made up her mind that I was the root cause of all ills in my family. I didn’t want to make it worst by arguing with her
I still had a lot of questions to ask Amma, so I waited for the land lady to finish the sermon and leave. The land lady continued to babble, but I was far away, in Nagaland, in a small house with my wonderful husband and 5 daughters.

Suddenly we heard a loud noise from the kitchen and both of us ran to the kitchen to see what happened. There was yellow lentils all over kitchen floor. Amma looked at the land lady apologetically.
“the tin slipped out of my hand” Amma mumbled and showed her injured palm with the cloth bandage on it and the empty Nutramul Tin.
“Painful hand or not, I still have to cook, don’t I?” She was looking at the land lady
“Why didn’t you ask Nina? She can cook, can’t she?” The land lady was looking at me, as though I was the worst criminal on earth who is forcing her old mother to cook a royal meal even when she was in pain.
If only the land lady knew the truth! If only she knew the truth that my mother never wasted her energy to cook food for her daughters. Her idea of a meal is porridge and green gram dry curry. Only I know how many times we have eaten rice with fermented yogurt with worms in it or spoiled sambhar because she refused to cook and I was too young to cook.
“She cooks? She doesn’t even know how to boil an egg” Amma replied
I was so mad at Amma for talking like this. I have been cooking food for her and my sisters since the time Akkachi got married. How dare she says that I don’t know how to cook?
“Amma, I know how to cook” I replied
“Oh really, that is news to me. Aunty why don’t you ask her, when was the last time she cooked food in this house? Why go that far? ask her if she cooked anything this afternoon? You know Aunty, From the time I got up this morning, I was stitching dresses for Liza.”
Amma arched her back and started to rub her lower back with the back of her palm.
“Aunty, You know how much my back hurts? It is not easy, sitting down on the wooden sewing bench without any back support. Fortunately I no longer have to use the pedal, but still it isn’t easy, sitting down and sewing from morning. But the thing is, If I don’t do it, who else will do? Next month Liza has to go to college. What will her friends say when she wears old dresses”
I looked at my mother. I thought she believed that we should only have friends who accept us for what we are and not what we wear? Why didn’t she stitch any new dresses for me when I went to college? She didn’t even buy me a new pair of shoes and I remembered how everyone at the college laughed at me because I was wearing rubber slipper to college. Amma was working at that time. She could afford to buy me new shoes, but she didn’t. But the rules suddenly changed when Liza is going to college?
“You know aunty, I thought my daughter would help me to cook lunch, instead, do you know what she did? When she found there is nothing to eat, she took her little sister and went out to eat. She is rich, No? But, Did she buy anything for her mother? No. instead she bought Mangosteen for herself”
I regretted bringing the damn Mangosteen home. I should have eaten it with Sally. I hated Amma for making others think that I am a bad person. I hated her for the way she was treating me.I looked at my mother. Does she even know how much I hate her?
“You see the way she is staring at me? As though I am at fault here. She thinks she is perfect! She is never wrong!” Amma spoke.
I quickly looked down. I noticed the lentils on the ground. I didn’t want to clean it. But I knew if I walked off, Amma would use that as an opportunity to accuse me that I am lazy. So I took the dust pan and the broom from behind the door and bend down to sweep the floor
“Nina what are you doing?” Amma screamed
“Sweeping the floor” I screamed at her. As though she can’t see what I am doing!
“Are you crazy? Sweeping the lentils with the dirty broom? Have you gone crazy Nina?”
Crazy? Why is she mad now? I am helping her now, am I not? Then I thought may be Amma was angry because I used the broom and not the brush, we usually use to clean under the bed. Still it didn’t make sense to me.
“Amma, The lentils are already on the ground, it is already dirty! What difference does it make if I used the dirty broom or the brush?”
“See Aunty, see how she is behaving? If I wasn’t here, she would have thrown away the lentils”
“You mean you are going to use this lentils? But Amma, the lentils fell down on to the dirty floor and it is already contaminated with dirt! you are going to use it for cooking?”
Amma shook her head sadly.
“You are just so dumb Nina. So what if the lentils fell down on to the ground? All you have to do is pick it up one by one and when you want to cook it, you just have to wash it well. Don’t you have any common sense to think that far Nina?
“What kind of a doctor is she going to be?” Amma was asked the land lady.
I noticed a sarcastic kind of smile in the corner of the land lady’s mouth, the smile that asks you, which moron gave you admission to the medical college and how in the world did you pass your first year!
“Now sit down on the floor and pick up the lentils one by one. come Aunty, let us sit outside”
Amma and Aunty walked out of the kitchen. I overheard Amma whispering and telling Aunty that I was plain dumb, not at all like her other children
I knelt down and started to pick up the lentils one by one. The floor was dirty. The letils were in the midst of onion peel, coconut husk and strands of hair. It was disgusting to think that anyone would want to reuse the dirty lentils, but more than the disgust, it was the ache in my heart that bothered me.
I could not get my mother to say once that I was smart. I got admission to do medicine, I passed the first year of medicine even after going through such emotional turmoil before the exam, and unlike Maria, I still come home and take care of my mother and sisters, still I was not good enough for my mother. I was just not good enough