Someone Special

Source: Wikipedia

The most beautiful thing about childhood is your mother’s pampering: her hugs when you fall down and skin your knees, her amused looks when you try to hide under the bed while playing hide and seek, her exasperation when you refuse to eat your lunch just because the vegetables are not cut the way you like. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the children of working mother. I’m one of those.


But before you guys start jumping to conclusions, let me tell you how it was. At 6.00 am, mom would wake us up. She would keep on yelling at us until we brushed our teeth and had the bath. For breakfast, we would get cornflakes. Daily, and not the fancy ones (strawberry-flavored or banana-flavored or God-knows-what-else) that we have today. Our snacks would be packed (Mom never packed bread and butter. Being a health freak, she would get up at 4.00 am and would make stuffed vegetable parathas for us!). By 7 am, my mom would be done with all the household chores (We didn’t have maids or servants at the time as they refused to come at ungodly hour for work. Hence my mom was the cook and maid, all rolled in one.) and our lunch would be ready. We’d leave the home together – my bro and I would go to school, while my mom would go to railway station to catch the train to the God-forsaken village where she would have been transferred at the time by the state government.

When we came back from the school at 1.00 pm, dad would come from the office for 10 minutes. He would make sure that we indeed consumed our lunch instead of throwing it out (for which we were quite popular among the dogs of our colony). After giving us stern instructions to not to open doors for anyone, including strangers and family friends, we would be left to do our homework and study. Unfortunately the checking up never used to end. Every hour, either mom or dad would call from the office to know what we were doing, and we, being idiots, always used to confess our misadventures (which generally involved either burning papers in the balcony or making tents on our bed out of bedsheets!).

In the evenings, mom would make us sit in the kitchen and recite our homework while she cooked. Although I hated that part because I would never have had studied or done my homework, today I think that time was special. Despite taking care of household while holding down a Class II government job, she always found time to check on our school progress and debacles. Sundays were always special because she would be at home. We would celebrate Sundays by going to Zoo or children’s park.

By the time, mom retired, my career started. My routine started resembling my mom’s – the only difference being, I refused to wake up at 4.00 am to cook hot parathas breakfast for everyone. Early on, I realized that I’m not a superwoman like mom. I can’t do the things she did, and my respect for her notched up.

Unfortunately, in this race of life, I hardly spend an hour with mom during weekdays. During weekends, I try to spend as much time as possible with her; but to be honest, it doesn’t amount to much due to several reasons. First, I have to complete all my pending personal work during holidays; and secondly, whenever I sit with mom, she’s always like “you have to do this, you have to do that…” because she hates to look at all the piled up work. Consequently I run away (I’m too lazy to do much work on Sundays). It’s only when we are on family vacations, we talk. I mean really, really talk! There’s no pending work to complete, no issues involving our relatives to be discussed and best of all, no household chores and cooking! We are free to spend the time with each other without pointing out what the other hasn’t done. I know, mom and I are lovely duo.

Right now, I’m in money-saving mode. I want to take mom to all the religious places, including Rameshwaram, that she ever wanted to go. We have already been to Char Dhaam and few other Jyotirlings in last few years but still the list is long. To be honest, I don’t know how come we Indians have so many temples; but then looking at the number of Gods we have, is it any wonder!

Anyway, I just hope I can fulfill as many wishes as possible for mom and make her happy! And before you think I’m too sweet to think like this, please don’t. It’s just that if she’s happy, she will let me live peacefully!

This post was written for #MrAndMrs held by British Airways in association with Indiblogger.in