At times, the obvious thing....is not that obvious....

I was being troubled by the usual morning pangs of hunger...a packet of biscuits seemed highly inviting at this volatile state of my appetite....

My mother froze as soon as she saw me entering the kitchen....and then looked at me as if I was missing my head or something...i did a quick check...my hair was in the expected just-out-of-the-bed state...my nose and ears seemed to be in their usual places....

"What???" i asked her.

By now, her shock had faded into something like a smirk-cum-smile.

Oh.My.God.

"Have i got a pimple????!!!!" i shrieked, my voice an octave higher.

"No no...it's just the way you are growing taller...like...overnight!" she said.

"Oh god! you almost gave me a heart attack!" i reached for the biscuits.

"It just seems like yesterday that you were a tiny little thing that i brought home from the hospital, and now, look at you! In a few years you wont even remember your parents!" she said.

"MOM! cummon now, take a chill pill.i'm just growing taller! it's not like i'm turning into a whole new person or something," i tried to reason with her.

"Are you not?" she said with one of those mysterious-and-unreadable looks on her face that always get me going.

I made it for the veranda.munching on the biscuits and chai i thought about how nowadays i spend my evenings Orkutting instead of cuddling up next to my mother listening to stories, or how most of time my headphone claimed my ears.....

Ofcourse! i was growing up to be a somewhat different person..and she would know...she's my MOM!

Suddenly, i felt the responsibility of growing up....i missed that little girl who held her father's finger moving through the crowded streets of the bazaar...clenching that long finger it felt like i was the most protected person on the earth.

The sound of her chuckles reverberated throughout the room when her sister found her long lost pen in the little one's pencil box....and the fear she felt when mum scolded her for wrapping mum's saree all over herself....

It was frightening...i did not want to grow up to be a lady and face this vast, unknown world all by myself....did not want to lose the innosence of childhood...did not want to leave back the memories captured in the camera.....

Growing up...............not such an easy job, is it?