Mama Said
Pearls of wisdom from Amrita's mom, plus a NEW podcast episode featuring our parents!
New podcast episode!
In today’s episode, you’ll hear directly from our parents and siblings — we got everyone on the phone one-on-one to give us their honest feedback about family dynamics, and then sat down with Marina to hash it all out: cultural differences, boundaries, all the things…
We’d love it if you subscribe and even more if you feel moved to review!
Lessons from my Mom
My mother never fails to stop and smell the roses - quite literally. This tacit practice is one of her many mantras, both spoken and unspoken.
Some of her drumbeats are rather common among Indian moms: Wet hair should never be tied back, nor slept on! Never leave the house with uncomfortable shoes – your walk may be longer than you think!
Others seem to be more idiosyncratic to my own mother specifically (and to my face, particularly), such as: be sure to always wear earrings, “otherwise your head looks like a teapot.”
There’s a whole category of pseudomedical Mom-shibboleths as well. During our respective postpartum phases, she urged both my sister and me to put a warm compress on our belly to “make it go in.” We are willing to bet this one has no real scientific merit. On the other hand, I scoffed for years at don’t fall asleep with the light on, you’ll get breast cancer!, which –astoundingly– turns out to be true (?!?!)
One of her most sacrosanct beliefs is the conviction that one should never wear underwear to bed. Things need air, she’ll insist with evangelistic fervor. (She is not wrong here, either).
But my absolute favorite is her insistence on pausing at every promising-looking bloom in her path. Embark upon a walk with my mother in the springtime, and every few steps you’ll find yourself pausing while my mom stoops to consider a lily, or bends a peony branch down to her face.
She’s not undiscriminating. Sometimes she’ll bury her nose in a particularly well-formed rose, and pull away saying “bah! Smells like nothing at all”, shaking her head in genuine disapproval as she walks onward. But, more frequently, her delight upon finding a sweet-smelling blossom is pure and absolute.
It’s an unbridled joy that extends to other experiences, too. After countless trips to New York, she still brings a first-time visitor’s awe in seeing Times Square. Her genuine thrill is just the slightest bit contagious, even to a curmudgeon ruined by years of daily commutes to midtown. When we travel or go on hikes, the view of a waterfall or the glimpse of an ocean vista will root her to the spot. She will drink in the natural wonder and exclaim, out loud, “oh!! God is great.” [Which, incidentally, relates to another of her unspoken mantras: always take a minute to sit on a bench with a particularly good view, even if you don’t ”need” a rest at that moment.]
Now that the early summer is in full bloom, on my mother’s behalf I exhort you to drink in and savor the season’s changes: don’t be afraid to stop in your tracks entirely in pursuit of a moment of delight.
(And definitely ditch those undies overnight.)
Your summer soundtrack begins now
Speaking of the season, our radio show playlist this week leans fully into the joys of our Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial starting gun for summer. The show runs live 6-8pm on Sunday evenings.
Your mother sounds great. Maintaining delight in flowers, enough to truly stop and look closely and inhale their scent is a gift. I love that. I also just last week was preaching to another that “things need air” and don’t go to bed with underwear! 🌸