Lamps and Smokes

She looked at her son who was sound asleep. She liked looking at him for he reminded her of her father. She had lit many oil lamps and had broken many coconuts as heartfelt gifts to her favorite goddess, Devi, for having given her a son just like her father. She had never understood whenever her son had tried to explain her about genes. She had longingly looked, many a day, at her son's pair of jeans trying to figure out why her son thought they were responsible for his resemblance to her father. But she had always been proud of her son. Always. To her, he was smarter than all her family members put together. She also knew that he was going to lead her into a happier future. Because of which she was overjoyed with the decision she had taken that morning. The mother and the son had walked into a Humanities college and the son had gotten himself enrolled in an undergraduate course in Sociology. She still had difficulty pronouncing her son's to-be educational qualification and she had ended up saying 'Sosiam' to a few of her neighbors who had immediately opinionated that she had spoilt her son's future. But she had not cared. To her, all her neighbors were fools. They had, after all, let their children become engineers. And according to her, all engineers were chain smokers. Such an understanding was not her fault though. She had just reached her own conclusion sweeping thousands of cigarette butts everyday at the 'Smoking Zone' of the IT Park she worked in. She was more than happy her son had not become an engineer/chain smoker. She decided that she would light 101 oil lamps the next day in the Devi temple and went to sleep. Half an hour later, noticing that his mother was fast asleep, the son slowly tiptoed towards the door and stepped outside the house for a quick smoke.