She could not hide her smile. I did not know why. My father had borrowed my motorbike. He took my mother out for a ride and he arrived back home in the back of an ambulance. He was fine, minor scratches and bruises but it was a huge deal for us kids. Our father was a superman. Just like most fathers are.
We were scared but my mother uncharacteristically smiled. I neither had the courage nor deemed it appropriate to suggest that my mother was indeed smiling at my father’s misfortune. She fell too, but came out unscathed.
A few years after he had passed away, I asked her that if she remembered smiling the day they both fell of the motorbike.
‘After I got married into this house, we hardly had any privacy. There were so many people all the time. Your grandparents, your tayya-tayyi (uncle-aunt), and their kids. I am not even sure how we conceived you, but I guess somehow we managed.’
‘He had this scooter, a Lambretta, unlike the other scooters, it had a single seat. Your father would apply sudden brakes and feel me up. That was the only thing that had an element of risqué in our life ’
‘He tried the same while we rode your motorbike the night he fell’
She sported the same smile when she recalled my old man.