Anjali packed two tiffins every morning. One for her husband. One for Aarav, who was nine and liked his parathas folded into triangles.

She was a working mother with a 9:30 meeting and a bus that never waited. Her own lunch was whatever she could find. Usually a biscuit. Usually at four o’clock, when her head began to ache. Her mornings were a race: dal on the stove, shoes by the door, a hairband she could never find.

Today she was fasting for Navratri. That meant, she told herself, there was no lunch to pack.

She was tying her shoes at the door when Aarav came out, sleepy, in his socks. He was holding something yellow.

“Ma, take this.”

It was his old tiffin box from kindergarten, the yellow plastic one with a faded bear on the lid. Anjali opened it. Inside were two bananas, a handful of raisins and a folded piece of paper.

On the paper, in wobbly pencil, he had written: MA’S LUNCH. EAT IT.

“Beta, I’m fasting.”

“Fruit is allowed,” said Aarav. “Dadi said. Papa helped me.”

“I wasn’t going to eat.”

“I know,” said Aarav. “That’s why I made it.”

Anjali opened her mouth. Nothing came out of it.

She looked at her son, who had been climbing into her lap since he was two. He was too big for her lap now. His elbows stuck out. But he stood there in his socks, with his hair flat on one side, waiting for her to take the box.

She put it into her bag.

At 1:30, in the office, between a phone call and a meeting, she opened it. The banana had smudged the note. She smoothed the paper flat with her thumb and leaned it against her computer.

Then she turned her phone face down on the desk.

She ate both bananas, slowly, one small bite at a time.

Scripture/Source: Inspired by Maa Skandamata, the fifth Navadurga form, who is shown holding her infant son Skanda (Kartikeya) in her lap. Her story, as Parvati and the mother of Kartikeya, appears in the Shiva Purana tradition (versions differ).

This is an original modern story inspired by that tradition, not a retelling of scripture.