Love, with an albatross attached: Part I
(This is Part I of a two-part essay. Read Part II.)
Debt
Milk gave rhythm to life in my golden 1990s childhood. It had to be acquired, boiled, a glass in the morning, afternoon chai, me spilling it, Amma cleaning up, evening chai, collecting malai, a glass before bed. Amma's amma had bad bones. Inside Amma's bones brewed an osteoporosis that would manifest only in the next millennium. But she had the foresight, or paranoia, to understand I was at risk. Parenting, from the start, was a project of risk mitigation.
One litre of milk (cow's for the parents and buffalo's – more nutritious – for the child) came to us every day at 7.30 am. The milkman had a cowshed in the courtyard of his home – the house was really more of an afterthought to the cowshed – and he set out on his bicycle, and later motorcycle, to each house on his route. When he rang his bell, mothers would rush out with their stainless steel utensils. The wait for the milkman must have been an unpleasant chore for Amma during those chilly desert winters of Ajmer, but it was a chore she undertook out of love and fear.