A Bad Mother
I thought I knew what she was going to tell me. I was always suspicious. As a school kid, I had seen her dancing wildly on the airy rooftop of our house, especially during rains. Her eyes closed, her long hair flying , an ecstatic smile playing on her lips - she used to be in a trance. She was a beautiful woman. A shy dimple would appear on her left cheek the moment she spotted me. And then, she would hold my hands and make me go around in circles till we fell dead on the wet surface, panting and laughing. Who danced on a rainy day like that? And then, there was this smell. Whenever she would hold my face affectionately between her palms, the pungent smell of tobacco would enter my nostrils and stay with me the whole day. Later, I saw her smoking often - sunk deep into a rocking chair, sucking on a white stick, unruly rings of velvety smoke floating above her head, her eyes staring into something far away. I nev...