Prose · 06 / 08 · Edition 01

My grandma’s daughter

a portrait of mom, by someone slowly turning into her

By Ashwika Tripathi · Sep 2026 · 1 min read

My grandmother’s daughter.

Quirky. Childish. Stubborn. Innocent. Feisty. Perky.

She's annoying. She's short-tempered. She's scary. She's forgetful. She's dominating.

But she only means well. She takes care of me when I'm sick. She makes me lunch to take to school. She feeds me with her hands. She draws the diagrams in my notebook for me. She gives me a head massage when I have a headache. She picks out clothes for me. She unfolds my blanket for me.

She is nice. But not.

I don't like her around me all the time. But I miss her even if she's away for ten minutes. I don't like it when she speaks too much. But I share everything with her and ask for her opinion.

Our opinions never match. But I follow her advice always.

I realise she was also me once.

Quirky. Childish. Stubborn. Innocent. Feisty Perky.

And I spend nights thinking about it. Isn’t she me? Am I not her? Will I be like her too?

At first I feel weirded out. But slowly as I analyse her from her toe nail to her split ends. I don't see what's wrong with me being her, or her being me.

I feel, in fact, quite happy about it. Just one thing i say about her, isn't she lovely.

Five minutes into my dreamworld, she calls me to get the door. And then I'm back to finding her annoying.