Essay: The Toughest Task

The toughest task

What do you think is the task that is the toughest to execute? People would come up with varied answers, all describing some kind of heroic, courageous, unlikely task which is likely to sound glamorously dangerous, like say climbing mount Everest, or fighting in a war or building a multimillion dollar company or something. Believe me that is not true. Sometimes, a task that seems so insignificantly easy, can become the toughest that you’ve ever encountered. And I learnt this the hard way last week, when I was asked by my mother to go grocery shopping. I was provided with a list, money and instructions (which I found completely unnecessary), and was sent off on this wonderful trip like a little child going to school for the first time. I was quite offended by the way I was being treated. I am a seventeen-year-old after all, almost an adult. I can buy the groceries on my own; or so I thought, completely unaware of the humongous task looming before me which would change my perspective of grocery shopping forever.
Now there’s something you need to know about my mother in order to understand what I really went through. When my mother shops; she shops in bulk. And when I say bulk, I mean it seems like she’s shopping for a family of twenty instead of five. I was casual and relaxed about the whole thing. It was no big deal. All I had to do was name the item, pay and go back home. But I was sadly mistaken. I began with the vegetables. I called out the list of items to the shopkeeper, who chattered away with me in Bengali and I kept nodding and smiling, even though none of his words made any sense to me. I could vaguely decipher that he was saying something about grocery prices, and suddenly he asked me a question, waiting expectantly with his black beady eyes for me to answer. I had no idea how to answer it, because I hadn’t even comprehended the question. I wondered what I should do for a while and then did what I normally do in such a situation; I smiled and nodded my head. Till then, I had never realized that carrying groceries was a task in itself. The shopkeeper had given me an unusually large number of vegetables, specially the carrots. There were two large packets full of just them, in addition to the three packets of other vegetables, and I wondered why on earth my mother wanted so many. Maybe that’s what he had asked me at that time. “Oh well,” I thought, “maybe we can donate some to the zoo to feed the rabbits or something.”
Next, I headed for the pulses and legumes. My mother had asked for rice, ‘arhar dal’, ‘moong dal’, ‘masoor dal’, ‘chana dal’, ‘rajma’ and ‘barbatti’. I had no clue what most of these were but I called the list out to the shopkeeper and he shook his head in a sagely manner, which I found quite irritating. He placed before me three containers of rice. I looked at him blankly wondering what he wanted me to do, till he finally asked me “ Konta nebe? Gobindbhog na bashmati na minikhet?” I was at a loss for words. It had been an accomplishment in itself that I had managed to decipher what he was asking me to do, but actually choosing between types of rice that I didn’t even know existed and could never pronounce the names of seemed quite an impossibility. I pointed to the first one he had shown me, which I had vaguely heard of and quickly asked him to give me that ‘dals’ next. He gave me ‘chana dal’, ‘rajma’, ‘barbatti’ and two yellow dals as I looked on with relief, thinking I had gotten away without having to face another situation which made me conscious of my inefficiency and limited knowledge. But my relief was short-lived, and the perspiration poured down my face, as if an imaginary waterfall had formed on my head, when he placed another two containers before me. “ Konta nebe? Kalo masoor na laal masoor?” I was so perplexed by this question that I turned to the old lady standing next to me as if pleading her to help. Having gotten no sympathy, I finally asked him to give me both using some more of that sign language that I was beginning to get really good at, and headed off to buy the eggs.
By now I was carrying six bags weighing about half my body weight in my hands, and I staggered along the road looking drunk and lame, and cursing under my breath. I have always been proud of my physical strength. Amongst all the girls I knew, I was the strongest and loved that title. I hated admitting that anything was too heavy for me to carry, so I walked along defiantly, refusing to stop for a rest, to show some imaginary figure that I could handle the weight, when I tripped over a rock and landed flat on my face on the pavement; the bags flying in all directions. This was the last straw. I was unhurt, but boiling with rage at no one in particular, which stemmed from my immense embarrassment. The beggars sniggered and the shopkeepers tried to conceal their smiles as I picked up the fallen bags and hailed a cab. The respect I had for my mother had doubled in those 60 minutes, but she would just have to do without those eggs.
I reached home safely without any more troubles and triumphantly placed the shopping bags in front of my mother. I would never admit that I had had any trouble buying the things because I had created such a scene when she was giving instructions. I had also given her a long lecture on parents who never let their children become independent because they mollycoddle them and treat them like babies. She did not comment on the carrots, and on being asked about the eggs, I said that the shop was closed and so I had been unable to buy them. Everything was going great. My mother was impressed, I had proved my point, and she would never know how much trouble I had actually gone through. I was smiling broadly now and was singing a nice song in my head, feeling completely satisfied with how everything had turned out in the end. Then my mother dropped the bombshell on me. “From now on you can do the shopping every week!” My face fell, my jaw dropped, the song struck a wrong note. I loved my mother, but at that moment I wanted to shake her and yell. She began laughing and I just stared at her in disbelief. She had known all along, and my scraped knees had confirmed her suspicions. I hate that mothers are such know-it-alls. But then, I thought with relief, at least I wont have to do the grocery shopping every week!