Mother's misery, grandmother's joy

It was my decision to go off Sri Lanka leaving our little one with her Ammamma (my mum).  I still don’t know what made me take this decision. As it turned out I was almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown staying away from Smera for 6 days.

My mum is almost fanatical about her granddaughter – who also happens to be the first one in my family. It is the first time she is experiencing the joy of being a grandmum and she absolutely loves it.  And this is just reason why I wanted to leave Smera with her, so they could spend uninterrupted 6 days of pure happiness.

I planned out everything – flights, hotels, rent-a-car, and places to visit except for one thing – my misery. A complete oversight, I just didn’t realise how much I would miss her, so much that I almost annoyed my mother with my constant phone calls. Smera has been deeply wired into my system and even a few hours of separation makes me go crazy.

So first task upon arrival was to get a mobile connection and make that first call to check on my munchkin. Just as expected the child was cheerful, not at all stressed about her missing mother. Should this make me happy or sad I wondered? I was undoubtedly pleased to see how emotionally independent the little one is.

Mum and Smera spent the next couple of days in Trivandrum and then went off to Kumarakon to savor their remaining days together. The duo went fishing, boating, swimming and gorging on scrumptious Karimeen Polichattu among other things.

While they were having a good time, I was constantly on the phone eager to know what is going on. 100 minute free talk time from Mobitel seemed like a good deal when we bought it from the Colombo airport, but by the next morning it had all but turned to a negative balance.

I could sense that my mom was getting tired of taking my calls. It was after that I retorted resorted to a tactic that can only be described as beyond silly – I coaxed my husband to call mom and put on the speaker phone hoping to catch Smera’s voice in the background. Call me a desperate mummy.

Amid the self-inflicted psychological torture, I managed to do a bit of sightseeing, a lot of tea gardens and a great deal of shopping.  We had to buy another bag to fit it all in even after expanding the big suitcase that we carried on our way in. I really went berserk shopping clothes for our toddler. 

The last day of the trip had to be the longest – airport delays, weather, even the traffic police seemed to be scheming against me – how else would you explain a 2 hour delay to a normal 45 minute drive.

It was about Smera’s sleep time when we reached home. Taking her in my arms from my mom, I realised that that had to be one of the most priceless moments for me in a long-long time.

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