Ever since I’ve decided to pen down about Ammi (Mom), all forgotten memories no matter how minute and faint they are, have started reappearing in my mind; for example the day I was circumcised (guess I was 3 years old) when the Barber (Hajaam) put a sweet candy in my mouth and pointed to sky to watch an aeroplane flying overhead. My resistance and reluctance proved futile as within seconds my father took me in his arms while I bled and cried with pain.
At that time I sneaked towards Mom who was smiling and shedding tears relentlessly.
As my elder brother (2 years older than me) and I were growing up in our ancestral tiny village, I recall indistinctly my uneducated mother having scores of arguments with my father over migrating from that village to a nearby town for children’s education. During shifting on a caravan of two to three bullock carts, I slept in Ammi’s arms for better part of the 10 mile long journey, as I was later told, but I do remember that I would also sporadically alight from the moving cart to stroll along and/or would run to catch them up.
Ammi would every time stretch out her arms to take hold of me and save me from falling down and getting hurt.
Our rented house in the town was quite large with electricity and a hand pump (Nalka) for water. We had a buffalo in courtyard. Ammi would milk it twice a day and would let us drink fresh milk. After school I would just run outside barefoot to play “Gilli Danda”, Marbles, or would go to Bus Stand to watch new buses. On returning home around sunset, filthy from bottom to top, Ammi would just drag me to stand below the Nalka and let me take bath to clean up.
She would always narrate stories/fables of animals, genies or fairies before we were fast asleep.
Once my tutor of class six Mr. Narain Das tried his best to teach me how to read analog Wrist Watch and tell the correct time but I wouldn’t. On replying the wrong “Time” the umpteenth time, the tutor was peeved at me and slapped across the face.
As if Ammi was standing just across the door, she instantly entered the room ignoring her “Pardah” and asked the tutor as to how he dared slapping her son!
One thing I never understood for long until I turned father; how can parents especially mother love her all children equally? I always considered myself getting most of parents’ attention and care during my early childhood. Other siblings were also in agreement with me and when they protested, Ammi would just reject their plea with a big grin.
Now, decades later, my children repeat the same story and ask their Mom, why Fatima (youngest of all) is your “LADLEE”? They don’t get the different reply from their Mom either.
Mother’s love, affection and showers of prayers for her children have been considered as something obligatory for her to do. No matter how ill-behavior and disrespect the children treat her mother with, they feel proud to be living in a shadow of their mother’s “Duaeen”.
The painful fact; ask a bribe taker, a ‘Sood Khor’ (interest taker), a rich man who makes big fortunes through illicit means, etc., how come he is so successful in his life? Just because I’m bestowed with my mother’s blessings, will come the sole reply.
Time never stops. Once completely dependant on parents especially mother, I turned independent and the most unfortunate reality is that my mother is dependent now. Am I behaving and taking care of my dependent as better as she used to, years ago, when she was independent? What about you, the reader?
The reply must be pretty painful!
Can we find solace in justifying that we are paying back mother’s love and affection to our children instead, and these children will be paying back to their children and so on?
How many of us, still living under the shadow of this evergreen tree, have rekindled complete respect to her and allocated some ‘precious minutes’ to listen to her patiently without getting into arguments?
