Kitchen, Mother & Me

Preety Atreya Gyawali

As a woman,
Have to bound in the kitchen every day
Sometimes for myself
Mostly for family.

Naturally,
By birth, I bounded into the kitchen
As My mother too bounded
It’s inevitably bound
As a legacy of bounding!

Sometimes,
When I need not to had captivated myself
Too much in the kitchen
In my teenage days
My mother said to me
‘Why every day people need to eat?
If there would be once a week!
Then how it would be relaxed
The mind would be free
No need to think
What to cook
What to eat….
One could occupy oneself in other cores!’
That time I didn’t have any answer
Just smiled
And agreed with her.

After marriage,
After having responsibilities
And so on,
The same thoughts came to my mind
I called to her
After chatting some things
I mentioned the same
As she said to me
With a smile.

‘Mother, you used to say
Sometimes the same thing
I too remember those
But what to do
It has to be
As it’s the natural
For that thing
People toils themselves too much
Everything people are doing for the kitchen
And that is food
So I accepted it as natural
As you do
With no any sigh
And together trying to manage
Some Me times for me too.’

Then again,
After some time
As I knew that
For inner happiness
Only food is not enough
My internal desire and my hobbies
Also matters
My personal time also matters
To groom myself.

But sometimes I feel tired
And reluctant
then again
I remember you
You are my inspiration
To do everything
You managed and still managing
everything so well my dear Mother
Sometimes I fail within myself
Then by seeing my kids
I gather up my courage
And get up to groom myself
While fulfilling my responsibilities.