It’s been 11 years since I married Vedant. In the early days of our marriage, I often found myself wondering how some people were so close to their mothers-in-law. I still remember asking my friend Priya, who was blessed with such a wonderful bond with hers, how she did it. She smiled and said to me, "You just have to wait until you find something in common. One day, you won't just see eye to eye, you'll see heart to heart." I didn't fully understand what she meant back then. But today, I do. Fast forward to the present... Today, she is my mom too. Not a single day goes by without speaking to her. I share everything - from joy to fear, from parenting concerns to occasional frustration (even with her son!), from everyday stories to life’s bigger questions. She’s become my sounding board, my confidante, and a second nature I reach for without even thinking. Just the other day, she suggested something about my son's schooling. I didn’t agree at first and felt ups...
I woke up today in the early morning to feed my 3-month old kid. He was resisting latching on but was also crying because he was hungry. I started looking at his movements when waiting for him to settle down. This wait started jogging my memory back when I was a kid. I was a rebel kid. If you ask my parents, they will say that “was” is an understatement. I still fight with my mom and dad on various ideas. There are always arguments on how to go about something. Now I think about it, there was always arguments/discussions from my childhood. It started with my questioning on the need to go to school. I hated it, of course, who does not. But I used to run from the school to my home on the first opportunity I got, considering my home was sharing a compound wall with the school in India. My first teacher was my mom’s close friend and she was ok chasing after me when I did that. Good old days. I would fight with my mom and my teacher refusing to go back to school. Most of the times, t...