And what must I do when none was at home. It seems as if all of you had conspired to leave me alone. I thought of making a cup of tea for me but even it felt tasteless as if all the taste of my hands had vanished with you. So what had you said at the University, "Mummy. don't colour your hair! You are looking so horrendous with this red crown of yours".

How had you changed? A look at your sophisticated looking Professors and you started finding flaws in your mother - your own mother. But that is what life is all about. And now you had gone. Gone to Chandigarh with a dream in your eyes and here I was sitting alone and thinking about you. What should I do? Another cup of tea might help me come out of this restlessness. Another tasteless cup of tea I gulped down but my restlessness had increased instead. Why do you keep on criticizing me all the time? Is it love wrapped in criticism or your?

Regret for having got a mother that was a bit different from the average kind of the mothers? It was perhaps your disappointment that you tried to cover under the pretext of love.

Or were you really concerned?

I just don't know why could I not be the mother that you would have loved to have? One harsh truth of life is that you don't have parents of your choice but are supposed to do with the ones that you get. I think your remark hit me more because somewhere inside me was the same feeling that why had I become so careless so far my appearance was concerned. i just wanted to do with the bare minimum requirement for looking presentable whereas you were hurt when you found that your mother was not getting the recognition that she deserved only because was not dressed up in apposite manner.

You were right my daughter! It hurts you when you find your dear ones not being recognized, as the fact remains that in the present world it is the packaging or the appearance more than the substance that matters and we evaluate people solely on the basis of this one factor. But another important factor is that appearance are deceptive and as soon as the facade is over the real you comes out stark naked and then it is more pathetic to see the rejection of the self that was artificially created.

And when you realize that there has to be maintained a balance between the inner and the outer self, you will find the truth behind my appearance. As basicaly I am a simple person at heart, I cannot pretend to be what I am not!

Or is it still a kind of escapism to run away from the reality that I rerally am lazy and a miser person when it comes to pampering you by presenting the best of you. Again I find a kind of conflict that I had tried to hide under a care-me-not attitude?

How surprising it seems today--when I was a small girl and was considered weak and unattractive, I tried my best to look pretty and today when I know that I am quite good looking, I try to look just the opposite! Why has there been a conflict in my inner being where ialways run after the things that I don't have and avoiding all those that I have?

So what I am in reality?