Like Mother, Like Daughter

(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!

That's why it's called 'good old'

I have two companions on my way to work - two channels of the AIR. There are many radio channels now - a plethora of choices, but it's always good old AIR which I keep going back to. The 45 minutes to an hour journey to work is a pleasant one which often has me smiling. It always takes me back to my younger days. There is definitely something about the music - both the English and the Hindi. It is melodious, calm, it soothes. The lyrics make sense, make you connect. The music draws me, the lyrics make me want to pay attention to them and then I start to go back in time. I think of times spent, with my family, my friends. I just rewind to just about anything. What better way to start my work day than by listening to such wonderful time tested music! But......... they don't make them any more!How many of the recent songs have a calming effect? Barely a few! The songs are brash, the accompaniments jarring and the lyrics.....the lesser said the better. And yet, they're popular!!! I hope and pray AIR continues to play the same good old music always............

It always boils down to.....responsibility to the family........no matter who

Have been in the process of getting the house painted over the last two days. There are three youngsters Prakash, Panda and Bhuttu who might be barely 20 who have been allocated to do the job.
Thin, tall, very unsure is how they look. At times it seems as if they are emotionless. But then, is it really the case? Certainly not. Not after the small talk I had with them which humbled me and also in many ways put me to shame.
They come form Orissa, have been in the city for two years now and just about manage to speak some amount of Hindi. None are married and have family sizes of 5-7 back home. Have they come here to fulfill their dreams, to mint money, to make it big one day? No, it's none of the above, it is to just be able to send money home. How much do they manage to send? Each keeps Rs.1500 for himself every month and sends the rest to their family, the amount being anything between 3000 - 5000!! What is 1500? It's obviously a lot to them, in fact everything since it sees them through a month! Their lunch is vada-pav / samosa and probably 20 mls of tea.
I wonder what keeps them going. The job in itself is so mundane and so uncomfortable...........you are inhaling the dust while scraping off the earlier paint and while painting you are inhaling the fumes. How long will they be healthy enough, their lungs be strong enough so that they can continue to do what they do now? And then, what? Is it then that they will give up?
They live in a tiny shanty in the 'elite' South Mumbai, 10 of them together. It's all there for them to see - the swanky stores, the high rises, the four wheelers, the hotels, the pubs. When they see these contrasts do they ever wonder where they are, what their life is about, do they ever feel hopeless? Or is it that they just know it - know that this is where they are, that the knowledge of it is so strong that it doesn't even cross their mind and they are happy where they are. Happy in the fact that they live in Mumbai, that they have found work in Mumbai, that they are financially independent, that they are able to send money back home every month!!! Come to think of it, it is a lot they accomplish!! Prakash, Panda and Bhuttu smiled big smiles when asked their names and when they spoke about home and how they support their family. With the smiles one could see the pride!
For their families back in Orissa.................I wonder what they think. It's as if I can see the chest high pride - son/brother working in Mumbai, sending money home every month and even getting back goodies when he comes back on his yearly visits during Pooja!!!! Do they know what the son is doing, how he's living, what he's eating................I doubt.

Better late than never!!!

Seems that I've finally joined the bandwagon!! This is the first step..........hope I continue..........considering that I'm not particularly inclined to spending a lot of time in front of the screen unless absolutely essential - for work that is.

Have always enjoyed writing though. It's a medium, a medium which helps me put down my thoughts without actually having to think about what I am writing. Being a person who doesn't really share much with people, writing to me is like sharing. Sharing without having to think about what the other person will feel, sharing without having to wonder if I'm imposing myself on a person, sharing without transferring my emotions directly onto a person. So, here I am.............shifting from the pen to the keyboard. Yes, the sharing will be more now, there will be people involved, emotions transferred..............hopefully the virtual nature of this sharing will bring in the objectivity (fingers crossed!).

As 2010 draws to a close, I look back at a year which has whizzed by! The pace is scary, so many weeks, months, days and hours..................how much of it have I been able to do full justice to??????? Honestly, not much. There is so much more that I could have done. So, as I'm about to begin changing the year on my documents to 2011, I hope and pray that I'm more aware of the time ticking by, of the blessing of having every day that I have!

To all of you...............have a good 2011!!!