(I wrote this in August 2004. It still holds true!)
Years come, years go. With each passing year there is a myriad of impressions added to my life.....and......a lot many years have now been added to my life.
There are so many things and instances that remind me of my bygone days. Days when as a schoolgirl I would look up to mamma with awe and then, came those days as I grew older, when I questioned many of the things she did and even tried to reason with her! That 'reasoning' period in my life was when I thought of myself to be old! To me, most of mamma's actions were beyond reasoning - I just did not seem to understand why she would do the things she did!
Times sure have changed. Today, when I see myself as a homemaker, a wife, a mother, there is so much of mamma that I see in the things I do.
One of the many wonderful childhood impressions is of gardens. Pappa being in the Army, we always had the opportunity to live in independent houses with garden space. Phlox, Gerberas, Asters, Salvias, Sweet Peas, Zenias and Gezanias(mamma calls it 'Sweet Sultan') were always part of the garden. Over two decades later, when I had the opportunity of garden space at Lonavala, the flowers I chose were the very same ones mamma had grown in her gardens! "Colourful, beautiful", is what she would say and, "Colourful, beautiful", is what her daughter says.
At night, mamma had this habit of asking my brother and me what we would like to have in our tiffins for school the next day. Unending school days had left us at a loss for ideas. We would answer, "Anything mamma". She did not like that answer one bit. Today, when I ask my son the same question at night, and when he answers, "Ooph! Mamma!", I can't help but think of our tiffins.
Staying with tiffins, my brother loved carrying rice and the entire paraphernalia that went with it! Mamma would wake up early in the morning and cook fresh food for his tiffin. I would keep telling her to cook it the previous night but she always had this nagging fear of the food getting spoilt by lunch time. History repeats! My son enjoys taking rice to school (the bread pakoda I sent today came back as it is!), and his mother cooks the food in the morning.
Before boarding the school bus and while alighting from it on the way back home, the person I used to see was mamma. Now, putting my boy onto the bus in the mornings and receiving him at the bus stop in the afternoons forms one of the happiest times of the day for me.
Mamma as a habit doesn't sleep in the afternoon. She calls it 'my time'. That's when she stitches or bakes or paints. Her daughter too doesn't sleep in the afternoons and when her son calls her a tailor or a baker or a painter, she knows where it is coming from!
I have known mamma to wait for pappa for lunch or dinner. I also clearly remember telling her that she ought not to stay hungry for pappa's sake. These days, the very same daughter who told her not to go hungry waits for her husband to get home so that they can eat together.
Life is full of ironies!
Almost every action of mine is in some way in line with the way mamma's actions have been. Be it opening the gate for my husband in the morning or ironing my son's undergarments and night suits. I still talk to mamma about so many things, get ideas when I want to stitch something or bake or, want to plant flowers. For every action of mine I know the roots were sown when I was the little girl who always watched her very closely, whether it was with awe or with question marks!
Years come, years go. With each passing year there is a myriad of impressions added to my life.....and......a lot many years have now been added to my life.
There are so many things and instances that remind me of my bygone days. Days when as a schoolgirl I would look up to mamma with awe and then, came those days as I grew older, when I questioned many of the things she did and even tried to reason with her! That 'reasoning' period in my life was when I thought of myself to be old! To me, most of mamma's actions were beyond reasoning - I just did not seem to understand why she would do the things she did!
Times sure have changed. Today, when I see myself as a homemaker, a wife, a mother, there is so much of mamma that I see in the things I do.
One of the many wonderful childhood impressions is of gardens. Pappa being in the Army, we always had the opportunity to live in independent houses with garden space. Phlox, Gerberas, Asters, Salvias, Sweet Peas, Zenias and Gezanias(mamma calls it 'Sweet Sultan') were always part of the garden. Over two decades later, when I had the opportunity of garden space at Lonavala, the flowers I chose were the very same ones mamma had grown in her gardens! "Colourful, beautiful", is what she would say and, "Colourful, beautiful", is what her daughter says.
At night, mamma had this habit of asking my brother and me what we would like to have in our tiffins for school the next day. Unending school days had left us at a loss for ideas. We would answer, "Anything mamma". She did not like that answer one bit. Today, when I ask my son the same question at night, and when he answers, "Ooph! Mamma!", I can't help but think of our tiffins.
Staying with tiffins, my brother loved carrying rice and the entire paraphernalia that went with it! Mamma would wake up early in the morning and cook fresh food for his tiffin. I would keep telling her to cook it the previous night but she always had this nagging fear of the food getting spoilt by lunch time. History repeats! My son enjoys taking rice to school (the bread pakoda I sent today came back as it is!), and his mother cooks the food in the morning.
Before boarding the school bus and while alighting from it on the way back home, the person I used to see was mamma. Now, putting my boy onto the bus in the mornings and receiving him at the bus stop in the afternoons forms one of the happiest times of the day for me.
Mamma as a habit doesn't sleep in the afternoon. She calls it 'my time'. That's when she stitches or bakes or paints. Her daughter too doesn't sleep in the afternoons and when her son calls her a tailor or a baker or a painter, she knows where it is coming from!
I have known mamma to wait for pappa for lunch or dinner. I also clearly remember telling her that she ought not to stay hungry for pappa's sake. These days, the very same daughter who told her not to go hungry waits for her husband to get home so that they can eat together.
Life is full of ironies!
Almost every action of mine is in some way in line with the way mamma's actions have been. Be it opening the gate for my husband in the morning or ironing my son's undergarments and night suits. I still talk to mamma about so many things, get ideas when I want to stitch something or bake or, want to plant flowers. For every action of mine I know the roots were sown when I was the little girl who always watched her very closely, whether it was with awe or with question marks!
