Family Ties ... that Bind and Choke

"Mommy, come here! Now! Nanimma is making me angry again."

"Komal, come here and talk some sense into your daughter!"

Here we go again, thought Komal, exiting her room. As she walked to the living room tastefully decorated with artifacts from India as well as those picked up on travels to Africa and Mexico, the slender youthful-looking woman dressed in black pants and rust-colored blouse tied back her shoulder-length hair with a scrunci. Really, these fights between her mother and her only child were getting worse as days went on. Amma was trying to maintain what she thought was her position as the head of their women-only household, while Indu was trying equally hard to rule it.

"Indu, could you please stop shouting like that? And Amma, I told you that I had a headache and wanted to rest."

"I'm not the one that called you first," was her mother's immediate and childish denial. At 65 years old, she looked like a slender piece of dried ginger with glasses and gray hair in a bun, dressed in a white sari. For all her apparent fragility, however, Komal knew how feisty she was. "Besides, your daughter was trying to sneak out of the house, and I was just doing my duty by warning you. By the way, I am glad that, finally, you acknowledge that you need to rest, something that I've been telling you to do for ages. Spending all hours of the day at the workshop or at the boutique is hardly what a woman of your age should be doing. If we were still living in India, you wouldn't be like this. Why, in the old days ..."

If she had told her mother this once, she had said it a hundred times. Still, it was worth repeating. "Amma, I'm not doing any of this just since we live in the US, but because I'm the part owner of a business. Both of our costume jewelry boutiques are doing very well, but it takes work to keep them that way. As for my age, I'm not even 41. I am healthy, and being active makes me happy. So why shouldn't I work?"

Indu was 20 years old, and had the psyche of a normal American girl, but at times, she could act just like her grandmother. She crossed her arms at her midriff, looking like a model in her carefully accessorized outfit of designer jeans and cropped yellow top. "Mom, I have to agree with Nani on this matter. Dad's life insurance money should be enough for us to get by. Why should you be stressing out over this jewelry business?"

"We could certainly get by on your father's savings, but we definitely wouldn't have the money for any of the luxuries you are so fond of. Remember the Mazda Miata that you had to have for college? How about the trip to Europe with your friends? And ..."

"All right, all right, you don't have to go on. At any rate, why must you do all the work? Let your partner, Mr. Das, do something at least!"

This just wasn't fair. Seriously, had these two any idea how hard it was to run a business? "Do something? Indu, he does most of the work. Who do you think does all the ordering? In addition, Rahul takes care of the inventory, accounts and payroll, and even manages the stores. All I do is design the jewelry and supervise the girls that make it."

Amma's head stuck up like a crane contemplating the horizon, in what she assumed was a saintly air. "Well, I think that you should work out of the home, not be flitting around the city. Moreover, is designing costume jewelry something a modest widow with a grown daughter should be doing? Certainly your father and I didn't teach you that!"

"Baba taught me to use my brains for good things, not just to store gossip. I'm not sure just what you taught me."

There, Amma, put it in your pipe and smoke it. Komal had a distinct urge to giggle as she remembered the line from some sitcom.