Of Vampires and Umpires

I love my mom. I know this is stating the obvious, but I do love her. She is the second person I love the most. The first place is secured by my brother:)

My mom is a very simple person. She has always been at home taking care of us. She is an amazing cook (again stating the obvious). She was born in our village in Kachchh, Gujarat and spent the early 4-5 years of her life enjoying in the Rann, playing on farms and milking cows. Then she came to Bombay and did her studies till 10th. Post that she could not continue her studies although she wanted to. But she has been our (me and my brother's) teacher. She had studied in Gujarati medium and we were in English medium. So she would sit down with an English to Gujarati dictionary and put down meanings against all the tough words and explain to us every sentence of every book. Her efforts amaze me today. Most of what I am today is attributed to her. But I also have this crazy part which is totally not derived from her and she doesn't get it. I don't blame her at all.

I love to read novels. And sometimes I can get totally drawn into the world of the books I am reading. Like in case of Harry Potter books, I used to literally pray to god that if there ever is a world of Hogwarts, I want to be there and I want to help Harry kill Voldemort. I would call my brother Dudley and I would tell my mom that I don't want to be a part of the Muggle world. Naturally, she would get amused and irritated at all my childish babbling.

So there was this fine day when I was reading Twilight and I was crazy about Edward Cullen (the best vampire of his kind and the only reason I could read the Twilight series). There was some cricket match going on TV and I was reading my book. My mom was cutting some vegetables. My mom is neither too much into cricket and completely not into vampires. I was in one of my crazy mood at home and I said to my mom, "Mom, I want to be a vampire". My mom looked at me, then at the television, then again at me and said, "Aren't those people called the umpires?"

My brother was rolling on the floor laughing. I gave an exasperated look to my mom and tried explaining to her that those people on TV are umpires and vampires are blood sucking creatures who kill people and drink their blood. My mom didn't find the vampires to her liking and gave me the look she reserves for me when I start talking crazy. My brother was still rolling in his fits of laughter.