Mother and I
I saw pride glister as tears in my mother’s eyes as I walked down the auditorium steps with my PGDM diploma. She came all the way from Meghalaya to attend my convocation despite her bad leg. It meant a lot to me and I know she wanted to be there too. She was filling in for Dad, he left us in 2001. After the ceremony we hugged and cried and all she could say between her sobs was ‘Your father will be proud of you today. He would have wanted to be here’. I looked up and asked her ‘what about you?’ She just smiled through her tears. That was my mother.
I have always thought I was my father’s daughter. Pampered and praised at all times, I was the apple of his eye, his “mamoni” ( a bong word of endearment).And it was very difficult for me to come to terms with his death. I still haven’t. I used to feel after he was gone that I am practically alone in this world. Mom was around but her favorite was my younger brother and we always had a lot of differences in opinion.
I would always be vocal about how different I am from her and deny the uncanny resemblances we share. I look like her, have similar temperaments and the same streak of independence. I was jealous of her attention towards my sibling. I became a rebel. Painted my nails black, wore clothes she hated, fought constantly with her over issues ranging from my hairstyle to boys to my acute abhorrence for household chores. I wanted her attention.
Today she isn’t with us either and I find it difficult to come to terms with the loss. I am still trying to live up to her few golden rules of life.
The first I learnt when I was in Lower Kindergarten. I drew a sun with blazing rays where I was supposed to draw an egg in a haystack and failed my drawing test. I came home crying, hurt by jibes from classmates on my masterpiece. Mom heard me out patiently and said ‘Every one of us has weaknesses we are not proud of. Working on this weakness and making it your biggest strength is the mark of an achiever’ I got back to drawing with a vengeance and a few years down the line I won the district level painting competition beating some of the best talents and surprising everyone but her. She just smiled.
I learnt the second rule when Dad passed away. I saw her as the strong woman that she was and my admiration and respect for her increased manifold. Right from taking care of his last rites to setting us back on track she was the rock of Gibraltar. She told me later that she got her strength from her conversations with Dad every night. She said ‘adversities and challenges will try to break you down from time to time. Drawing strength from your good times will help you realize how blessed you are and energize you with hopes of better times’.
She put away Dad’s savings in safe deposits and being the entrepreneurial woman that she was she dabbled in several business ventures, right from turning her garden into a nursery, to running a shop of gift items in the local super market to working as a lecturer in 2 colleges she did everything to maintain our standard of living as well as fund our education. All along we didn’t realize the money we received as our pocket money was from her monthly earnings and not what Dad left us. That remained untouched till the end.
Mom was injured during the unfortunate Police Firing on innocent protestors on Sept 30th (2005) at Tura Chandmari Ground which left her with a sprained leg that never healed. In the months that followed she took up the baton for human rights and became an active member of the 30th Sept Solidarity forum. Right from meeting politicians to arranging rallys, TV recordings to fighting for the victims claims she was running around, still in her crutches.When I asked her why she is getting involved she said ‘All through the golden years of my life I was busy being a daughter, good wife, mother. Today I wish to be a good human being and fight for the right cause. I am also an individual and need to live up to my other expectations’.
Today she is remembered at every Solidarity Forum gathering and our hearts fill with pride when people come up to us and talk about all that she has done for them. From her I learnt that no matter what role I play in life now or later on I still have another role I should live up to- my identity as a woman, an individual.
Today as I go about my life, flirting from one role to the other I remember this is another part I need to play the way she did, with grace and élan. I wasn’t a great daughter but someday I wanna be a great mother- almost like her and an equally wonderful wife. Today I flirt with my destiny in trying to live up to my identity which starts from living up to my surname first. I have a big shoe to fill.
