Arranging the pleats of my mother's saree,
I looked through the corner of my eye
At the foggy mirror of the almirah.
I left it loose, the drape flowing down my arm
Unlike my mother who'd pin it with a brooch.
My curls and locks flew frizzy with the wind,
And I pinned them in a knot,
But only a few strands tamed,
The ones which probably were the relics of my mother.
I put on a jhumka, not as modest as hers,
Bangles all silver,
But anklets which tinkled the same notes as hers.
Brick red lips on my dusky skin,
Who curled into the widest grin,
Unlike the coy smile that she would spare
Which my grandma deemed right for a woman as fair.
My eyes met the girl in the foggy mirror,
Who inherited my mother's full lips and dimples,
But not her smile.
And I tried for once, to look like my mother.
So I draped her saree in the hour of midnight,
But I left the pleats flowing, as my locks,
And let my grin shine through the brick-red full lips that I inherited from her.

a_lone_observer
© Pratiksha Saikrishna