My Mom
This comes almost as a sequel to my previous post 'On Womanhood'.
This lady has been serving me ever since she had conceived. I found her touch almost a part of the life that I am living and her presence, inevitable to my well-being.
In my kindergarten days, she was a terror. So strict a disciplinarian naturally is unwanted for, to any child and her affinity to education was what I loathed the most. However if words are pouring forth to give shape to my thoughts, I owe it to my mother.
Grace is a name that has been given by man to the beauty of womanhood. My mother is short and plump (as I saw her through the eyes of a child) and what pleased me to see, is how she combed her hair, served our dishes after arranging the table, knit our woollen garments and dress us to school. All with meticulous simplicity within time. The one thing I found charming and unparalleled was her smile and the glint in those eyes when she laughed her heart out. However, I hated to be disciplined. I hated her perfection. I hated her for wanting to shape me the way she was. I loved football. It was the most important source of joy other than books and movies. In my dream one day, I kicked a goal so hard on her stomach, that I had to pay a price for it. She never mentioned it later but I remembered it till today.
I was weak in Maths. The very idea of it used to send shivers during night before exams, bordering on fever and nausea. She kept awake to have me get the work done. Now, I still wonder how I'd solved some of the sums my sister found difficult during her preparations for Boards. When maa prepared me a speech on 'What if I became the Prime Minister of India', I failed to realise what went in her thoughts and efforts to make me win the first prize, for victory never excited me. I was happy being the me that I was.
One thing that I will always cherish is her absolute sense of humor which she displays when she is on her own, when she is truly being herself. She uses it not only as a tool of entertainment but also to teach us our stance whenever we forget our self-control. Laughter is core to her character and it is this that has kept me hooked. I marvel at her sweet disposal, at her magnitude in being herself in trying times and now a child in our care. The only other thing I hate in her is her tears. I can't bear to see this embodiment of dignity crouch in silent suffering.
I'd remember how she'd caress me in the silence of a night succeeding a turbulent evening precisely due to my denial of what she expected of me. I wonder what level of patience, determination and tolerance might have strengthened her will to mould the best in me. I released my frustration in school (twisted my friend's arm in std 3) and the very sight of her inside the premises gripped me with a fear uncalled for. She'd teach me lessons for having misappropriated her efforts to exhibit myself in the way expected from educated households and I'd bray aloud (with tearful eyes) my incapibility to overpower her. Today when children do the same, a mirror to my past, I feel the way she felt. In fact now,when I listen to her, considering her age and the truth of the very spiritual being in day-to-day living, I see my students listening to me.Time verily is a great teacher. She is consistent in her words and preaches only after she has experienced the fruits of certain practices. Brahmakumaris, Swami Shivananda,Osho and Baba Ramdev apart from Sai Baba, provide her with the necessary nourishment that she seeks and I owe them a lot for giving her her due; a transformation of myself.
When I find myself successful in my life, the kind I dreamt to live, I know whom to owe to. Father had never wanted us to be educated in an English medium school, considering the expenses it would accrue and suffered silently (much due to his honesty in a dishonest and corrupt world) and in observing how mother managed both the outside and the inside chores with dedication. She vent out her frustrations whenever she needed a release and then tried to make up for it helplessly. The very idea of studies,(for she gave it more priority than games and theatre,) remained as a continuous source of distaste and I willingly left answers I knew. On one occasion I left questions, (reference to I.C.S.E. Economics exam) to steal a nap in the exam hall.
It is during these times that poetry gathered roots and I found myself penning down letters in rhythms and beats. They came naturally, for, the All Merciful didn't want either of us ( my mother and I) to be disappointed with our efforts. Father had got the tele, but mother saw to it that we had no cable connection till we finished college. I had started to compromise with things I could not change and this gave me opportunities to express myself in better ways. I owe it to my efforts to get an admission in a millitary school and win a gold for the school in the District Level Basketball match. During one of our trips to participate in an inter-school essay competition I missed my mother very badly.The three-day stay was wonderful, but at the end of the day, it's the mother's eyes and face that the child wants to see as an assurance to have reasons to live.
We never saw what she would have felt for not having a chance to enjoy an evening herself. She never went to a chit-fund club, entertain silly gossips, flirt with other men, as some of our aunties did, (Oh, how I loathed them!) or encourage PNPC. She engaged herself to reading 'The Statesman' to improve upon her English (it is this that made her so respectful in the eyes of the sisters in our missionary school) or trying out a new dish for the family's weekend or designing a new cardigan she knitted.
I passed out of school without making boyfriends or watching 'Basic Instinct'. Things turned worse when father bid us goodbye from the world and mother was left with no job. Scholarships saw me floating through my years of +2., Graduation and Post Graduation, mother remaining the very pillar of support to the core. Providence seemed to take pity on my mother's diligent efforts and silent tears and SAI willed to share the responsibility to see me growing morally, spiritually and emotionally in the serene educational grounds of Anantapur.
This college gave me the air that was charged with spiritual energy to breathe, eat the food sufficient to sustain my hunger and the bounteous nature to help me see myself in the bliss of solitude. When I reflected over my reflections, I found how true God is in His design to so have given a mother who left me no cripple in the throes of this world,who nourished me with serials like 'Cosmos' and books on Shri Aurobindo, Mother, Swami Vivekananda, stories and prayers on Shri Ramkrishna Paramhansa, at an age when I never knew their meaning. I survived my first attack of asthama and chicken pox owing to my mother's fervent prayers.
She made me solicit the thought that there is a power, all encompassing, that controls us, nourishes us and sustains us. This I felt truly in the blissful moments of solitude. I started seeing things that could only be seen when the intuition is clear, when the mind is trained by the prayerful and devotional thoughts that supplies divine energy to make them happen.
Years later she narrated a dream where she considered me as a Divine Glory (the pages of her diary had confirmed). She told us that she knew what was coming and she was prepared for it( in reference to father's demise). In moments of relaxation, she prided herself for being the most adorable and loving child of her parents, relatives and neighbours and even strangers. Her gift of the gab and clear handwriting, self-composed poems and love for Rabindrasangeet made her one of the most important teachers of the school she had taught before marriage.
Post-marriage, she had to forego a job in a school and another at Akaashvani for the sake of us, both of which could well bring out the best of her as a lady, a teacher and a complete being. Father was brilliant in photography but compromising with his job cost him his health (Asthma followed by mental pressures led to maningitis tuberculum). Their sacrifice for our education and schooling demands a better life for them in their next birth.
Mother, to me, is now a matrix, designed in the semblance of a snowflake. All her minute efforts, pain and surrender find completion in my understanding of myself. She has given me back to me. She completely believed in the power within me and tapped it out to measure her standards as well as mine.
Today when I read her letters in secret where she repents, regrets for having inflicted mental and physical pain, for being ignorant (of what lengths can such things make an impact on a child's brain), I ponder what must she have undergone during those times when father was ill ( Father suffered for 17 years)and she had no one to share her feelings with. (Studies and location distanced us from relatives as well ). Shobha De's 'Speedpost' came to me at a time when I started mentally framing a meaningful conversation with myself (I do it occasionally). The Voice (in me) lead me to broach on what, how and who would have helped me so far to so dwell on my identity; and I knew I had no other source apart from my mother to discuss upon. It is then that I saw the petals unfold. The thorns of narrow-mindedness, selfishness, pride giving way to open the petals of simplicity courage and wisdom that my mother lived by example.
I am no star making headlines on newspapers but I am no less. I have what is required to spell 'success' in full and live it to the real. Courtesy my mother.For, without her as a guiding light, a goldsmith's hand and a perennial tonic of discipline, optimism and dedication I wouldn't have worshipped perfection as I do now.
This lady has been serving me ever since she had conceived. I found her touch almost a part of the life that I am living and her presence, inevitable to my well-being.
In my kindergarten days, she was a terror. So strict a disciplinarian naturally is unwanted for, to any child and her affinity to education was what I loathed the most. However if words are pouring forth to give shape to my thoughts, I owe it to my mother.
Grace is a name that has been given by man to the beauty of womanhood. My mother is short and plump (as I saw her through the eyes of a child) and what pleased me to see, is how she combed her hair, served our dishes after arranging the table, knit our woollen garments and dress us to school. All with meticulous simplicity within time. The one thing I found charming and unparalleled was her smile and the glint in those eyes when she laughed her heart out. However, I hated to be disciplined. I hated her perfection. I hated her for wanting to shape me the way she was. I loved football. It was the most important source of joy other than books and movies. In my dream one day, I kicked a goal so hard on her stomach, that I had to pay a price for it. She never mentioned it later but I remembered it till today.
I was weak in Maths. The very idea of it used to send shivers during night before exams, bordering on fever and nausea. She kept awake to have me get the work done. Now, I still wonder how I'd solved some of the sums my sister found difficult during her preparations for Boards. When maa prepared me a speech on 'What if I became the Prime Minister of India', I failed to realise what went in her thoughts and efforts to make me win the first prize, for victory never excited me. I was happy being the me that I was.
When I find myself successful in my life, the kind I dreamt to live, I know whom to owe to. Father had never wanted us to be educated in an English medium school, considering the expenses it would accrue and suffered silently (much due to his honesty in a dishonest and corrupt world) and in observing how mother managed both the outside and the inside chores with dedication. She vent out her frustrations whenever she needed a release and then tried to make up for it helplessly. The very idea of studies,(for she gave it more priority than games and theatre,) remained as a continuous source of distaste and I willingly left answers I knew. On one occasion I left questions, (reference to I.C.S.E. Economics exam) to steal a nap in the exam hall.
We never saw what she would have felt for not having a chance to enjoy an evening herself. She never went to a chit-fund club, entertain silly gossips, flirt with other men, as some of our aunties did, (Oh, how I loathed them!) or encourage PNPC. She engaged herself to reading 'The Statesman' to improve upon her English (it is this that made her so respectful in the eyes of the sisters in our missionary school) or trying out a new dish for the family's weekend or designing a new cardigan she knitted.
This college gave me the air that was charged with spiritual energy to breathe, eat the food sufficient to sustain my hunger and the bounteous nature to help me see myself in the bliss of solitude. When I reflected over my reflections, I found how true God is in His design to so have given a mother who left me no cripple in the throes of this world,who nourished me with serials like 'Cosmos' and books on Shri Aurobindo, Mother, Swami Vivekananda, stories and prayers on Shri Ramkrishna Paramhansa, at an age when I never knew their meaning. I survived my first attack of asthama and chicken pox owing to my mother's fervent prayers.
She made me solicit the thought that there is a power, all encompassing, that controls us, nourishes us and sustains us. This I felt truly in the blissful moments of solitude. I started seeing things that could only be seen when the intuition is clear, when the mind is trained by the prayerful and devotional thoughts that supplies divine energy to make them happen.
Years later she narrated a dream where she considered me as a Divine Glory (the pages of her diary had confirmed). She told us that she knew what was coming and she was prepared for it( in reference to father's demise). In moments of relaxation, she prided herself for being the most adorable and loving child of her parents, relatives and neighbours and even strangers. Her gift of the gab and clear handwriting, self-composed poems and love for Rabindrasangeet made her one of the most important teachers of the school she had taught before marriage.
Post-marriage, she had to forego a job in a school and another at Akaashvani for the sake of us, both of which could well bring out the best of her as a lady, a teacher and a complete being. Father was brilliant in photography but compromising with his job cost him his health (Asthma followed by mental pressures led to maningitis tuberculum). Their sacrifice for our education and schooling demands a better life for them in their next birth.
Mother, to me, is now a matrix, designed in the semblance of a snowflake. All her minute efforts, pain and surrender find completion in my understanding of myself. She has given me back to me. She completely believed in the power within me and tapped it out to measure her standards as well as mine.
Today when I read her letters in secret where she repents, regrets for having inflicted mental and physical pain, for being ignorant (of what lengths can such things make an impact on a child's brain), I ponder what must she have undergone during those times when father was ill ( Father suffered for 17 years)and she had no one to share her feelings with. (Studies and location distanced us from relatives as well ). Shobha De's 'Speedpost' came to me at a time when I started mentally framing a meaningful conversation with myself (I do it occasionally). The Voice (in me) lead me to broach on what, how and who would have helped me so far to so dwell on my identity; and I knew I had no other source apart from my mother to discuss upon. It is then that I saw the petals unfold. The thorns of narrow-mindedness, selfishness, pride giving way to open the petals of simplicity courage and wisdom that my mother lived by example.
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