Mothers. And others.

It’s 1:30 AM. I am at Chennai airport, having crossed over from the international to the domestic terminal, pleasantly surprised at the absence of (expected) overdone protocols & hostility that’s become the new normal for the world during the past 2 years.

?The last time I was at Chennai airport, Ma was around.

?The last time I was anywhere, Ma was around.

?It’s a strange absence. One that sucks away all the presence that made for my life this far.

?Because, in the beginning – there was Ma. Even before there was me, there was Ma. So it gets a little difficult to process this fact that she has passed over. Abruptly, quietly and without any fuss. Just like her.

?People often say you cannot choose which parent you love more. I think that this is more a qualitative rather than a quantitative statement. Indeed, you can never love both your parents the same way. And you cannot miss both your parents the same way. Each parent fills a groove. And they add up into the you who you are. And each leaves a void that stays. Till you do.

?My mother, like your mother, and all mothers, was a remarkable woman. Today, let me write about her. Because, while she’s moved on to her next plane, her earthly entity still awaits closure. Obviously this is not an eulogy. She would hate it if someone eulogized her and might have probably burst into uncontrollable laughter at the suggestion. She was someone who probably invented self-deprecating humor. Her ability to laugh at herself, and at life, was something that might have hit you first when (& if ) you met her for the first time. Like Arunima (my wife) says – She was such an incorrigible dude !

?Quick flashback. It’s the swinging sixties. The era of drainpipe trousers & Shammi Kapoor. And a Naxalite Bengal. A 16-year old girl faints during her board examination, much to her dismay ( it's her favorite paper - History). Tests reveal a brain thrombosis, a condition that automatically translated into a death warrant those days.

?There were two problems though. She came from a tough family of immigrants held together by a cop dad, a stoic mom and ten siblings – five brothers ( three by blood & two adopted orphaned children) & five sisters, the eldest of whom had taken over the reins of the family after the father’s premature passing. A double MA & a legend in their suburban small town, the elder one took it upon herself to get her little sister back from the dead, even if it meant a daily commute for 20 months between Asansol & Calcutta where she was hospitalized. She succeeded.

?Probably that was the fight that would go ahead & write Ma’s character. And destiny. She walked out of hospital & into life, unfazed. Absolutely freed of mortal fear. Maybe she encountered some divine whispers during those months in the hospital. Defying death so early in life can alter your entire identity.

?Like I said at the start – If I observed & revered Baba for his relentless love for life & his passion to help others, I was in awe of Ma for her eerie calm, her maddening composure under stress & her ( sometimes) irrational sense of humor. She was like someone who had won all her battles & laid down her arms. Or probably someone who had let go of all her battles, realizing the futility of human will against the Creator’s design.

?But if I have to point that one thing about Ma that shaped me as a human being, it was her ability to make friends. With one & all. She was, as they say, a ‘friendly sort’, someone you would go to confide your deepest secrets in & vent your angriest rant to. It did not matter if you were young or old, a Gujarati , a Marathi or a Punjabi. A teenaged girl or an octogenarian gentleman – everyone who knew her, instantly warmed up to her. Probably her self-assured & lighthearted demeanor put people at ease. Since my earliest memories of her to the most recent ones, she was always surrounded by friends, folks who would never cease to remind me how lucky I was to have a mother like her. I wish you could have seen her having groups of grown up men & women in splits of uncontrollable laughter with her anecdotes, throughout the memory-scape that I hold of her. I often use the phrase ‘People-Person’ to describe sociable personalities. My mother was the mother of all ‘People-Persons’. Someone who could win any election just by virtue of being so damn popular, not out of fear or respect on demand, but out of sheer fondness & love that she could command.

?(Once, when I was about six & we were returning from a Durga Puja Visarjan – an arrogant & drunk upstart started abusing a gentleman from our township & in no time we saw my mercurial Baba step in and get into a scuffle with this guy ( that was my Baba – the Abdullah of Begaani Shaadis). And as Baba was pummeling this fellow, his wife coincidentally was seated next to my mother in the bus. As the agitated lady asked my mother who this ‘ruffian’ was who was roughing up her husband, my mother, with the most serene expression on her face, turned to her & calmly stated that she empathized with her & added that such people are quite a nuisance. Completely denying that she even KNEW my dad, let alone acknowledging that she was his wife ! Seated on her lap, I was absorbing my first lessons in general management, Like she told us later ( much to Baba’s annoyance) – Now, your father has already picked up a fight for a silly reason and made an enemy. Why should both of us also enlist in an uncalled-for animosity ?. That was my Ma! ?? )

?Some time back I took a Hogan Assessment Test. If you’ve taken one, you might remember those repetitive trick questions that probe into your deepest corners & peel you layer by layer. It kept asking me in different forms, whether I was someone who likes to hold a grudge, someone who disbelieves that it’s something beyond science that runs this universe, someone who is scared of taking the path less trodden, someone who has a streak of ‘right rebellion’ in him & someone who did not need a title to step in, stand out and take lead when it comes to build a friendly consensus.

?Sitting alone in a near empty airport at a Godforsaken hour, the Hogan questions swim in the backyard of my mind as I strike a conversation with an elderly gentleman from Northeast India, waiting for the same flight as me. Soon, we are chatting like old friends. He tells me about the antics of his grandkids. I tell him about my daughter’s hilarious take on N98 face masks (‘dog-vibes’ as she says). And suddenly the world does not seem so deserted any more. There are two of us. There are stories. There is laughter. There is life.

?Soon, we have a group of late night airport staffers gather around us. I ask if anybody is in the mood for a cup of tea. They all say yes. I volunteer to sponsor. A young man goes to fetch the tea from the nearby stall, waking up the half-asleep attendant. The tea arrives. Soon we are all engrossed in a roaring adda. Soon, nobody is a stranger.

?Of course tomorrow will be a tough day. As they say, you lose your mother only once in life. Letting go of your umbilical bondage is not easy. Tomorrow is going to wear me out. But for tonight, I will live, I will smile. And I will try to leave a smile on a few other faces.

?Because that’s my Ma who will live on in me.

?My dude. My superstar. My hero.

?Go ahead Ma. Go shake up the heavens a bit. The Gods seem to have lost their sense of humor these days.

?I will miss you. Every minute. From here, till the finish line. Then we can have a hearty laugh on the other side of forever.

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?( A disoriented blog entry. 03rd April 2022)

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