MOTHER

Jumping around I picked up my mini purse and started enacting my teacher. It was late in the evening and I was all alone in my ordeal of fun! And suddenly as I sat scolding one of my imaginary students ( I was 8 years old then) , I remembered that I had a Punjabi poem recitation assignment next day. Puzzled as hell I looked at the watch, it was 7:00 already, and knowing about my wobbly Punjabi skills, my heart sank. I was on the verge of crying when my mother busy in her work approached me and kept my routine glass of milk on the table and left. I speculated on telling her and followed her back to the kitchen where she made herself busy arranging for the day’s dinner. I hesitantly called her and she gave a half hearing to me. I told her my problem and the next thing she did was to laugh at me.  She was so amused by the fact that I was being traumatized by such a thought! She told me to rush and get my book from where I had to learn. I ran back and brought it and she placed the book right in front of her on the kitchen shelf. I told her that it was too long and I can never memorize it but she shut me up saying ” Don’t count the pages, don’t see the length ..read the line you want to memorize right now..and forget the rest”. While she started making chapatis, she laughingly read the poem and made me memorize it. In mere fifteen minutes she had made the worry fly away so easily, which, for me, had been such a headache sometime ago. She brushed my tension away and kicked me up . That lesson, that message still lives with me today.
Small impressions build on you for a lifetime! And who else than your mother can know that better. There are just innumerable instances when she had appeared as a magician to me. Things that were so difficult for me, were so easy for her. Everything turned into a miracle, once my mother landed her hand on things. She was the best I ever knew. I shared with her a bond that I had with none in my family. We used to laugh for hours, play around and just enjoy together. Together I remember we would make fun of my elder sister and laugh at her. She was my best friend. Every secret talk of mine was meant for her. She made my life so easy and comfortable. She knew what scared me, what made me feel low and she did not let those elements come near me. At times she would even go to the extent of scolding everybody around! But one thing that she made sure was that I always smiled. She worked hard, day in day out! She reassured my lost faith in things by just being by my side. Never did she force me or my sister into anything. As far she herself was concerned, she was a hard worker. Her talent, knowledge was just exemplary enough for us to copy and follow. She had high dreams and at every step she had managed to attract a bountiful future for the entire family. It is because of her that today we dream of such high ideals because the standards that she had set were a benchmark. Not only this, her spiritual interests also helped us a lot in becoming who we are today and in helping us cope with whatever we came across.

But then things changed and everybody grew. I was no more a toddler, I no more depended on her so badly! My rationality grew only to take me away from the lady so wise. Instead of smiles, it is worries now that have crowded her. I know being away makes every mother worry. The distances, the bond has changed so much that it is we the children who today reassure our parents specially mothers that things will be fine and you need not worry. But back in our independency we feel wobbly and broken. The reassurance that we give you reassures you but not us. What remains is the fact that “A MOTHER STILL REIGNS HIGHER THAN THE CHILD”. If that reassured smile doesn’t come from you dear mother, it is of no use. We miss that vibrant smile and the way you took away all our tensions. It is often thought that children adjust in their new environments and often forget parents. But that was and never will be true. We do pretend to be happy but that is only a way of misguiding our own selves into a virtual reality which only appears to exist and actually doesn’t. Those pats and smiles always have made us strong and always will too.
There are times when we shout and howl, but those are times when rationality of our minds rides high over our emotions. We still need that caressing hand and not a judgement that we have changed. We go outside and meet a world that doesn’t care of us like she used to. We need that love that jokes off our tension. We miss the time when she used to groom us up for an outing and dictate us on what to eat and what not to,we miss that dependency.
There was that time when she took care of us when we had a 102 degree fever and there is today when we make every effort to hide it from her. All this because we cannot see her tensed because ultimately that is what guides us. I don’t know what has happened and what has changed but what I know is that I can never be as strong as she has been. I will always
depend on her!
Whatever she taught us, has impressed into our lives and everything passes through those in built filters. We have learned to equip ourselves in emergencies, we have learnt to be alone without our mothers. But that is a mere adjustment. The spark has been long lost since the day we grew and moved away.
From always depending on her to today where we rarely update her with whats happening in our lives, a lot has changed, the reason being the communication that has ceased and the fact that there is nothing she knows off and feels relieved off. For her maybe we are still toddlers who are empty alone. And that is true but yes this independency in us sometimes becomes too much heavy that we forget to grab her hand in the reckless race and maybe that gap has widened so much that there is no one in solace, neither her nor us. We need to tell her about everything, introduce her to this side so that she can be with us, guide us and take authority over us the way she did years back. Maybe the toiling would go away ! The bond can never end and we are all restless just because we don’t happen to have each other on the same line. Lets be on the same side, see the same view and then see our life being lightened by her lenses ! Because come what may she wont let the heaviness reach us before de-magnifying it to a trivial degree.
As a child, this Mother’s day I would be selfish enough to ask my mother for just one thing, Please do not stop being my mother! Come into my life more and dictate me like you did always, because yes my life badly lacks you and never can I find happiness without you in it.I don’t want to be the reassurer, please take your role back. Be that worry taker in my life and hold me strong, because I will always depend on you.

I felt her arm brushing away,
Making me awake as I lay.
It made me weak down to my throat,
Only on her side could I manage to float!
Rushing into her arms I found my calm,
It was her hugs and a smile so warm!
Nothing attracted me more than her presence,
Easier flew my adolescence!
Who was to know that strong would soon sublime,
And happiness again won’t rhyme!
The pangs of separation would revert the equations,
As if a boundary between friendly nations.
You are not alone, we suffer together,
Only you can make it light like a feather.
Just be stronger than me and hold me tight,
nothing will then remain for us to fight!