My mother left for hometown after a 3-month trip to Chennai, albeit in the most bearable of the times in the hot city. Not that she goes to cooler climes. This piece is not about that. It’s about the time she was here.
I keep asking myself this question every time, whether I do justice whenever she is here. There are obvious discomforts while she is around. She is very orthodox and that means what you think is normal behaviour is absolutely a crime. Starting from wiping the floor you sat and ate; well that’s not wrong, till the point cow-dung is insisted to be used. The only cows I know of this metro is of a different kind. Well that’s for starters, there are many such violations of her rules and I feel I am atleast a few hundred generations away. The rituals that I used to perform every month to remember my father’s death, does not hold any particular reverence to me now and I can see her disappointment at the seemingly flagrant affront to her husband, not withstanding the fact that I am just like her husband in every bit of me, starting from dead finger nails. The fact that I swear by him to run my life after his and there is not a day I have ate a morsel alone, just like him does not matter as much as the wonderful Sanskrit words I need to utter every month.
Ok that explains the difficulty I have while she is around. But these are minor ones because I don’t give up on what I believe as much as her and despite disappointing her I never give into what she wants. I can tell one thing for sure though. She is extremely proud of me and what I am and what I stand for. That she is of course about all the 8 of us. But, me, a special guy, after all I am the last and was made when she was forty. And like her husband, a totally unflustered character who never worried about the future. An innocuous explanation of my dad for having so many kids was a Tamil adage. ‘Maram Vachavan Thanni Oothayama Povan?’. It means that ‘Would a guy who planted a tree, wont water them?’ He was referring to God though and to his credit he himself watered enough and more.
Whenever she is there with me, I keep thinking about why this lady can’t enjoy all the great stuff in life rather than worrying about the silly stuff that does not happen. For example, an adhoc purchase of 2 sari’s costing 4K is not an everyday thing for her, but she was more worried about not getting the matching blouse. She has gone through pain, had 10 children in all, from a rich family, became middle class and now she is come a full circle with all her kids freaking out. But there is something she misses, and I don’t know what it is. If I did, I would get her that.
I never know whether I have told her that I love her, shown in actions many times, never told her once though. We all make the mistake, don’t we??
I was never the one who made the love so very obvious. In fact I used to ask her, how come you could love me the same when I am the 10th, would you not get tired? And for a major part of my life I believed that it was my eldest sister who was my mother and that suited me too. It was only when she got married and left home when I was 5, I started looking at my mother and am sure I was a pain all through. It was my sister who was a pet, the one who would look at mom’s face all through when we sit in a movie. But no one knows that all of us do that. We all always watch our parents. There is more in their face than any movie or life story can ever say. I don’t know whether my kids do that now.
I grew up with the belief that she won’t live long; they didn’t those days. So, in the middle of the night sometimes I used to wake up and see whether she is still breathing and if she did, slept peacefully then onwards.
And now, when every time she leaves, I keep thinking, is this is the last I see of her alive. But these days, its just not about her, I get an odd feeling that it could be either her or me.
I keep asking myself this question every time, whether I do justice whenever she is here. There are obvious discomforts while she is around. She is very orthodox and that means what you think is normal behaviour is absolutely a crime. Starting from wiping the floor you sat and ate; well that’s not wrong, till the point cow-dung is insisted to be used. The only cows I know of this metro is of a different kind. Well that’s for starters, there are many such violations of her rules and I feel I am atleast a few hundred generations away. The rituals that I used to perform every month to remember my father’s death, does not hold any particular reverence to me now and I can see her disappointment at the seemingly flagrant affront to her husband, not withstanding the fact that I am just like her husband in every bit of me, starting from dead finger nails. The fact that I swear by him to run my life after his and there is not a day I have ate a morsel alone, just like him does not matter as much as the wonderful Sanskrit words I need to utter every month.
Ok that explains the difficulty I have while she is around. But these are minor ones because I don’t give up on what I believe as much as her and despite disappointing her I never give into what she wants. I can tell one thing for sure though. She is extremely proud of me and what I am and what I stand for. That she is of course about all the 8 of us. But, me, a special guy, after all I am the last and was made when she was forty. And like her husband, a totally unflustered character who never worried about the future. An innocuous explanation of my dad for having so many kids was a Tamil adage. ‘Maram Vachavan Thanni Oothayama Povan?’. It means that ‘Would a guy who planted a tree, wont water them?’ He was referring to God though and to his credit he himself watered enough and more.
Whenever she is there with me, I keep thinking about why this lady can’t enjoy all the great stuff in life rather than worrying about the silly stuff that does not happen. For example, an adhoc purchase of 2 sari’s costing 4K is not an everyday thing for her, but she was more worried about not getting the matching blouse. She has gone through pain, had 10 children in all, from a rich family, became middle class and now she is come a full circle with all her kids freaking out. But there is something she misses, and I don’t know what it is. If I did, I would get her that.
I never know whether I have told her that I love her, shown in actions many times, never told her once though. We all make the mistake, don’t we??
I was never the one who made the love so very obvious. In fact I used to ask her, how come you could love me the same when I am the 10th, would you not get tired? And for a major part of my life I believed that it was my eldest sister who was my mother and that suited me too. It was only when she got married and left home when I was 5, I started looking at my mother and am sure I was a pain all through. It was my sister who was a pet, the one who would look at mom’s face all through when we sit in a movie. But no one knows that all of us do that. We all always watch our parents. There is more in their face than any movie or life story can ever say. I don’t know whether my kids do that now.
I grew up with the belief that she won’t live long; they didn’t those days. So, in the middle of the night sometimes I used to wake up and see whether she is still breathing and if she did, slept peacefully then onwards.
And now, when every time she leaves, I keep thinking, is this is the last I see of her alive. But these days, its just not about her, I get an odd feeling that it could be either her or me.
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