“Om Shanti”, my 50 year old mother stared
down at me, daring me to respond to her in like. I cleared my throat and spoke,
deliberately disobeying her, “ya…see you later.”
“Kahan jaa rahee hai, itni raat me?” she
asked, suspicion marring her, unusually high-pitched voice.
“Khana khaa ne…mom.” Well, of course I
could have made another bunch of thousand excuses, to save my mother the
trouble of imagining my meal, and more importantly the acquisition of it. But
then again, where was the fun in that?
I watched her mouth drop in a very wide and
very incredulous “O”, along with her eyes, which almost dilated. I could see,
wisps of fumes floating out of her ears when she screamed, to my utter delight.
Of course I wouldn’t dare show the delight on my face while I stood facing her
in an arrogant flick of my head, like any other 19 year old.
“Sunooooo, this girl is going outside
again, to drink blood. Pata nahee kis kis ka khoon peeti hai. All my life she
has sucked my blood, and now her evil tentacles have spread outside.” I hated
this part, I’d been a vampire for only 2 months now, and this already gave my
mother the right to claim that I had sucked her blood all my life. Utter
rubbish and lies1
She continued, “This vampire….gimpire is
just some stupid fashion trend she is following, like when she was in her
gothic days, or when she always wanted to wear a moustache like you, sun rahe
ho….this has gone on for too long.”
She turned towards me and with her most no
nonsense gaze, she spoke, “Tu kahin nahee jayege. Chupchap beth ke roti khaa.”
I turned towards my silent dad, who ignored
the entire argument, and focused on the new paper.
His silence encouraged me to further
disobey my, overtly annoying and interfering mother. “I’m going, bye. You know
I will not survive if I don’t drink blood. Or would you prefer me to make a
meal out of you and papa?” This earned a slight chuckle from my silent, still
staring at the same page of newspaper, father.
I held my stance with mom and stared down
at her, with my hypnotic gaze, but no matter how much I tried to focus, or
stress, her eyes burned with anger and disappointment.
“Theek hai jaa, I will pray to Shiv Baba,
to forgive you, be kind on you in hell, and give you a better janma next time.
At least, you will be born with your limbs intact, where and what family, I
cannot do anything about that, except pray.”
“Gee, thanks mom, I promise, my next life
would be free of sin?!” Completely impervious to my sarcasm, she then seemed to
focus her anger towards my dad, “Sunooooo, aaj couch me so jaana!”
That seemed to bring my father out of his woolgathering,
and he jerked around to mom and spoke, “Maine kya kiya?”
I used that distraction to sneak out of my
home, walk around the streets of Indira Nagar just to spot a nice six feet
tall, athletic and muscular, juicy meal.
