The call was never to chat or to say ‘I love you’ but to audit. Mothers eternally feared a daughter’s veering astray, and their questions resembled those of the jealous wife whose husband recently started buying her flowers. Where are you? Who are you with? Why did you go there? Who dropped you? How much did you spend? How come you stayed there? Why didn’t you have lunch? The conversation would continue like this for a time, with the daughter giving irritated monosyllabic replies and the mother boring ever deeper with questions. The call ended every time with the same frustrated adjournment: 'OK, OK, OK, bye, bye, bye.’
There was never substance, humour, or emotion in the calls. There was only fact-checking and the psychic urge to tighten a weave ever in danger of unravelling. Even the way the phone was picked up – 'haan,’ yes – evoked a discussion with no beginning and no end. A greeting would be too ceremonial: you only greet someone when you see them as their own person. But the Indian child was just an extension of the parent, and the conversation was not actually a conversation.
“India Calling” by Anand Giridhardas
This made me laugh so hard.
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