The Mother’s Tale
Supple hands stroking my forehead, velvety voice touching my heart’s inner ridge and a magical aura gently warding off the evil… yes you guessed it right? “Mother” is the right word.
Weaving the most fervid words with boundless metaphors and attributes cannot express her love for her child. It is infinite, seamless and inexhaustible.
The universal language of motherhood is so evident everywhere in the world that it twinkles from any corner of life.
A few days ago I was just standing at my balcony and I happened to notice a small child being lapped by a tree as her mother was working as bonded labourer on the road site but throughout her work she came between intervals to monitor her baby, fed the child and scrammed off those flies and birds.
Another everyday chronicle at my house is my maid’s inherent motherly act. She is quite a foodie but whenever I give her some nice delicacies she invariably puts them into her little bag and says “Today I am full, I will take it home.”
My mother in law has another maid who exemplifies her role as a mother, I am sure they are in abundance in India. She is the sole bread earner of the house. The children look up to their mother to have two pieces of bread or be draped with clothes, even the luxuries of buying a toy or treating them with a jalebi remains in her coliseum.
These are trivial events in our lives which we regularly come across… a mother sheltering her baby from the wind, a mother feeding her little one in her oddities, a mother keeping the best share of her food for her child, a mother bribing her children with lots of goodies or fighting with her guilt if she is late, a mother shedding those precious pearls seeing her child wounded, a mother saving those extra pennies in the remotest corners of purse for her daughter and a mother even sharing a deal with a customer just to feed those empty stomachs at home.
And I treasure all those memories which my mother gifted me with. Losing my mother at an early age has left scars which are so deeply engraved in my heart. Her minutest gestures which were so less remarkable at that age are so cherished today.
Everyday her little acts of love through her duties were so inestimable. Her regular morning tiffin sagas to her long walks in the balcony until I returned home. Her ever so gibberish jargon while correcting my silly errors in my maths copy to her tidying up of my dishevelled desk with querulous murmuring, her effortless craftsmanship in sewing my buttons to being all ears when I suffered mood pangs.
Her frequent cribbing about my diet to her incessant nagging about choosing right friends. Her emblematic “Ma” special Sunday chicken curry to her secretly treasured chest where she kept my jewellery, her painful sunken eyes when I was sick to her long lessons about idealism and morality and I can go on with endless anecdotes sketching a mother’s portrait.
Tucked are those immortal memories in my heart and I too reverberate the same chapters by and by as a mother unaware. The yarn of motherhood weaves by itself effortlessly as I enact my role as a mother to my daughter. Some mundane acts, few customary ideals and many eternal, unfading gestures of a mother are so evident yet so priceless!
Ronita-Maitra Bhandari is a free-lance creative writer who writes for various sites and blogs. She has also done a certified course in “Positive Parenting” from U.K. She is a mom to a 7-year-old and loves nurturing her greatest resource, her daughter. Apart from writing she is a nature lover and gets energised wandering around green patches. She believes family is a treasure chest and children are those precious jewels in the chest who sparkle to illuminate lives. What else would one desire to live a rich life?