The shifting floor beneath

Back when i was little and i didnt know
How you were supposed to eat bread and jam,
She reminisces,
Maybe you are supposed to dip the bread in jam,
I thought
And then i learnt,
By watching people spread the jam on the bread
At a picnic

And so they learnt the ways
Of the changing world
Bit by bit
Learning not just the material
But the emotional and spiritual things
That we so take for granted today
That you should not open
Someone else's birthday presents,
For example,
Or letters or greeting cards
And that book and movie endings are sacred,
To be closely guarded and
Not to be revealed casually

We learnt along with them,
The ways of this fast spreading world
But we learnt when we were young
And had our whole lives ahead of us
To make use of the learning
To take that learning for granted
To take it for the base of our world
And to make leaps from that base

While they felt constantly behind
Constantly flummoxed
Constantly trying to catch up
And never succeding
And becoming simply tired

And so she always was unsure
Unsure of how to step
Unsure if she should hold on to
The beliefs that her roots gave her
Or let go of them, and if so, how
Apprehensive that her attachment
To her roots, that she cannot explain
That seem to have no logic behind them
Will be mocked as superstition, gaucheness

Why mustn't we cut our nails at night, mamma?
Why should we not enter the house after shower
With our wet hair in a bun?
Why should we greet some people with folded hands,
Some people with forehead on their feet,
And yet some others with an obeisance
To the floor in front of them, hands fisted?
Why can you eat wheat bread and jaggery
But not rice on your fast day?
Why can you use the same serving spoon
For everything but the rice?
Why can't you use soap and must
Drape yourself in rags when
You are mourning a close one?

She defends it at times,
With an appeal to morals or common sense
She explains it away at other times
As primitive logic of an uneducated people
Who did not think for the future
She is unable to hold on to them
In the face of the onslaught of
Modern logic, most times
But is still scared to let go
Of the only thing she knows
And trade it  for the unknown,
Associated with moral decreptitude

And finally, she is envious
Of the moral, spiritual and practical compass
Of her foremothers
Which always, surely, pointed home
(Not envious of their lives per se,
Only of the certainty with which they lived it)

She makes compromises they never did
She says we can do as we please
And enter the kitchen when we are bleeding
That is, after she is gone
And even now she lets me sit
On the same room, the same carpet
The same bed and sofa as the men
Even when im bleeding.
She protests, in a voice she knows
Will be ignored at best
And derided at worst
That we leave no clean space in the house
(Clean as in ritually, spiritually clean.
No, she doesn't have to deal with
Physical uncleanness)
But she does give away ground
(Or is forced to)
Sometimes slowly, by inches
And nowadays more and more suddenly
(Those foremothers in her memory
Would have skinned me alive
For suggesting it)

And for this and many others compromises
She feels compromised
Her spirit constantly beaten
Until she learns to underestimate
Everything she knew

And she feels torn,
Between her mothers and daughters
(Both equally demanding)

She thinks we live our lives
With the same certainty
As her mothers
Feet firmly on the grounds of the reality
That had shifted beneath her

Maybe we do
Maybe we do stand on the shifting floor
More firmly than she ever did or will
And even though the floor still shifts
We know we will take it in our stride

But still we are as torn as her
Torn between our loyalty
To our newly found brains and voice
And the old loyalty to her
We would like to go
Where the new world takes us
Where our newfound thoughts
And dreams point us
We would like to be unfettered
By rules we do  not understand
But even more than this
We would like you to be happy
We would like you to have your dignity
To be respected at home
For after all it is your home too,
More so than mine

Growing up, it was a victory
To win these arguments by logic
But grown up i see
That then, i had not paused
To examine your life
(That i now know
Is the life i am expected to lead)
And when i do examine your life
I realize that it is no fun
To win those arguments

In fact, it is lose lose on every side
Your dignity versus my liberty

And so i clip my wings
A little bit every day
To compensate for wounding you
Exasperating you, walling you in
All those years

And I'm not even sure if you notice

For there are days when i still rail
Days when i refuse to cede more ground
Days when i realize that the cycle repeats
And yours is the life i am supposed lead now

And i know i have not
Your strength and perseverance
To live and laugh within that life
And so i rail one more time
To make that future easier for myself

A lose-lose everyday it is,
The battle of your dignity
Versus my liberty