It was a lazy Saturday afternoon with just me and my mum at home. As usual, being my lazy self I was just binge watching on movies the whole day and mummy, being her usual self (read perfectionist) was tidying some closet.
Mummy: Henna, can you please lower down the volume at least?
I sat there, unperturbed, happily watching a bunch of ladies wailing on the TV set
Mummy: Henna please. Lower it down. My head is throbbing with this stupid noise
I frowned at being interrupted in my weekend laziness and lowered the volume by two bars.
We both then carried on with our tasks at peace. Well, technically she carried on with her task. I wasn’t actually doing anything so to say. I shouldn’t be proud of saying this right? Right yeah..I know I shouldn’t be..but anyway.. After some time, while I was busy watching Shah Raukh Khan and Kajol, in the advent of romanticism spanning across India and Switzerland, my mother interrupted me. Well on a side note, was it actually advent of romanticism or mass acceptance of the prevailing patriarch society?
Anyway, so yeah she interrupted “Henna, how many times will you watch that movie? You don’t have to give an exam on it. Come here and help me out sort this closet.”
You might not know me that well, but still you would have guessed that this was not what I wanted to do on a Saturday, so I frowned (yes again and a bigger one) and shifting my position as a reaction on the sofa for the first time in 2 hours, I irritably said “Mummy please. It’s Saturday today. I have been helping stupid people in office do stupid things the whole week. Let me be in peace now”.
Yes, I am very cynical when it comes to how I spend my weekdays and I really hope at this time that none of my bosses are reading this, because otherwise there won’t be any more 5 days in the week!
You know that’s the problem with we people. We express when and where we need not and not where we should. I got back to watching TV so I don’t know what exactly was she saying, but I guess it was something around how everyone gets a weekend but not she. Food for thought? Yeah, it is..unfortunately!
She didn’t say anything for some time after that and I was feeling a little guilt. So, I switched to a music channel and went to her. She was sitting by the closet with a photo album in her hand. She was looking at the album in that moment, but I could see from the soft smile on her face that she was reliving the memories of those times in her mind. I don’t know why but my lips instantly twirled into a smile and I sat down next to her.
She pointed to a black and white pic in which she was standing along with my grandparents, uncle and aunt by the swing, wearing a cute frock. “This is on my 10th birthday. We all went for a picnic that day and Daddy bought this swing as a gift for me”, she smiled cheerfully as if she had again turned 10. And I couldn’t help but notice that the 10 year old she also had the same sweet smile as she has today.
She then turned to the next page and there was a pic in which the 14 year old she was standing amongst a group of other beautiful girls with candle stands in hand. Looking at it, she excitedly said “This is from a school dance competition. We all danced with lit candles on this stand in our hands”. I started laughing and she raised her brows and said “What? You don’t believe I could dance like that?” When I continued laughing, she let me a glimpse of the 14 year old she when she made a movement twirling her now not that slender arms, as if she is holding the candle stand in the hands. I don’t know why but I beamed as a proud mother looking at her.
As we turned on she showed me a picture clicked along with 2 other girls. I remember the other two girls (now grown up into beautiful ladies) as my mother’s friends who are now far apart, busy someplace with their lives and families. As she looked at that photograph, she mischievously grinned, “This was during our summer vacation, when all of us used to play on the terrace all day long and read books borrowed from the local library”. Well yes, she is the reason for any words that I have ever been able to string together or will keep stringing in the future.
And then she pointed to a picture in the most confident voice I have heard from her in a long time. “This is when I was being awarded for being the college topper.” She lingered on it for a moment and then thoughtfully said, I think more to her 21 year old self than to me, “I sometimes wonder how it would have been, if I could have pursued medicine”. And at that moment I feel something move up my stomach to my throat. I notice a tinge of…I don’t know…maybe sadness..maybe nostalgia or just plain ‘what if’ on her face!
All along there’s one thing I couldn’t help but notice. Everyone says I look a lot like her, but she used to look way more resplendent. I guess it’s the beauty of her soul that gives her that glow.
Now I sit there not for that album, but for her and she glances at her engagement picture. Both she and papa are looking so good together in that. She was her elegant self even in that picture, with a brown (her then favorite color) colored suit, neatly pinned up, well done hair and that trademark optimistic smile. I look at her face closely and behind that beautiful smile of hers, I can notice those pangs of hope and nervousness. How can I see that in a picture? I am a girl and she is my mother!
It’s a very old album, because the last picture she shows me there is a picture of all four of us (my parents, my brother and I) taken in a boat in Nainital lake. My parents looked handsome, my brother looked cute (he looks quite the opposite now by the way) and I looked..well..I looked like my mother!
I looked at her now. She looked older and I felt responsible somehow.
Just then my father came back for lunch and she got up to prepare for that. We were both picking up things strewn around and she was putting it in the almirah, when I said “Mummy, I know I am already quite grown up technically (I am 27 for God’s sake!), but I want to grow up to be a person like you”.
She continued putting things back in the almirah and said “Why would you want to be someone like me? I am no one. There are so many people who have achieved so much in life”
Well I have never been the hugs or the cuddles person, nor the one to be easily able to express any emotion of love, but I finally managed to say, “True. I have seen many accomplished women in my life. But I have seen only one who had the courage to give it all up, to make me one of those.”
She stopped midway, looked at me and smiled. Believe me, she still has the most beautiful smile.