“Hey … son, sit next to me for a while.”
This is what Sagar’s mother told Sagar. He was agitated,
“Oh stop it mom! What you keep rattling like a parrot, sit next to me, sit next to me! Can’t you see, I am sitting next to you.”
His eyes were in the mobile when he screwed up a face and grumbled.
Sagar’s 75-year-old sick mother smiled and said to herself,
“But I was under the impression that SITTING NEXT TO means listening to me carefully as I used to sit and listen to him when he was younger. Answering his questions if he asked any. And I also asked a few sometimes. I would ruffle his hair and pat his back, giving him my full attention.”
There Sagar spoke up,
“What happened mom? Lost in thought? I think now your brain has become sick too.”
He kept looking at his mother for a while.
With a heavy heart his mother said softly,
“I feel the same way son.”
A lone tear slipped from the corner of her eyes.
Written by Jagruti Kaila
Translated by Shamim Merchant
