The phone bell rang. The voice of the receiver was warm and affectionate but the caller was busy shooting list of queries.” What amount of water to add, Mom? How many whistles will the rice take to cook properly .How much salt to add? “Mom smiled and answered every question proficiently garnished with an expert's advice like “the dish would taste excellent if you add “xyz” spice also and even better if you eat it along with curd and...” .The phone got disconnected.
The smell of the rice made each mouth water. Riya’s friends were going into raptures over her proficiency in cooking. She also took pride in all her admiration. But somewhere, deep inside her heart, she knew that the taste of the dish was lacking something. She kept experimenting her portion of food with various add-ons like lemon, ketchup, curd etc.But nothing seemed to satisfy her. The recipe was all over her mind and while she ate, she kept revising it to check what was missing. The flavor was not similar to what it tasted back home. What was it that was missing? She questioned herself again and again.
Not letting her mind wander away from the “rice mystery”, Riya went off to sleep. As she lingered deep into her siesta, she saw her mother making the same dish for her. It was a dream. Riya saw herself vigilantly noticing the quantity of every spice added. She realized that there was nothing wrong in any step of the recipe. But all her efforts went in vain and she finally raised her eyes to clarify her doubts from her mother. She was astonished to see the marvelous pleasure and smile on her mother’s face while preparing food for her beloved daughter. She kept gazing at her Mom while the latter cooked. Mom kept talking to her telling her about various instances that took place in some friend’s house, about somebody’s daughter getting married or some XYZ’s son getting a high profile job. But all these words were falling on Riya’s deaf ears. She could only notice the zeal in her mother’s voice while she talked. This voice was not the same as the one which filters through the telephone in to her ears each day when her mother calls her up. She wondered why the voice was sounding different to her despite the fact that she speaks daily to her mother on phone .She also discerned a different energy level with which her mother was speaking. She had a spring in her feet. She never had so many stories to tell on phone. They hardly talked for five minutes, with each call ending in a promise made by Riya to call her back when she would be free. But those promises remain unfulfilled and Mom calls her back again the next day almost at the same time.
The whistle of the cooker in the dream woke Riya up. She was startled. Her heavy head could recall nothing. She rummaged through her side table and stretched out her hands under the pillow to find her cell phone. The time read 6:15 a.m. It was time for her mother to get up. She immediately called her up. Tears rolled down by the side of her cheeks as she heard her mother’s worried voice. Riya consoled her by telling her that she was fine and had called her up only to thank her for the wonderful recipe. She also told her that her friends kept praising her in every bite they took .Thereafter, in a low voice she revealed that only she did not like it because it lacked her mother’s magical touch. She could hear her mother smiling. Deep inside their hearts, both of them knew the reason behind the call. There was silence over the phone for two minutes. Riya smartly changed the topic telling Mom that she would be coming home for Diwali and that all flight bookings had been done. It resulted into an hour long conversation in which Riya did most of the talking ,making various plans for her Diwali visit ,while her mother only listened with a smile on her face.
