The aroma of the world’s best pav bhaji, the creamy texture of the rajma chawal, the aam-ras and podi roti oozing with love and radiating coolness to beat the heat, the echoing sound of laughter as I sit to chat with her, the collated gossip update of our entire neighborhood, the traipsing around in cloth shops only to create some bespoke mom-made couture and trying out the best cafes in town on a lunch date with her.
The first contact in my Favorites, my numero uno to figuring out life skills from making poha to washing a fancy piece of garment, probably the only one who gets a firsthand preview to my unedited photos and probably the foremost person I think of, when life upsets me and I want to bawl like a baby. The words Mom, Mamma, Mummy, Maa simply don’t do justice to the multifaceted superpowers that this woman embodies.
When it comes to the temperaments and the childhoods that we have had, my mom and I are poles apart with very different environments in which we have been raised. However, she is largely instrumental in building this so-called different environment in which I grew up, where I had access to many things that she may not have had - the best education and support system, helping me come out of my shell such that I was not just a bookworm but also worked towards developing an all round personality, pushing me to go on school trips to learn how to be independent and cajoling my introverted self to summon my friends home so that I (as the only child) learnt how to co-exist with peers, shared my attention with others and built bonds that would last a lifetime. She has always been there by my side to validate the silliest of my whims and support the biggest of my dreams.
A day in the life of my mother with a side of my sarcasm
My mother wakes up on most mornings with sore muscles and a broad smile on her face. She then goes on to make the morning tea for the family, makes lunch, packs tiffins along with answering a doorbell or two here and a phone call or two there, hoping to squeeze in a 15 minute stretch session for her aching legs. She then gets ready for the day and moves onto managing the servant, restocking the refrigerator, getting the vegetable guy to home deliver fresh veggies, ensuring Dadi’s maid is looking after her, only to proceed to lesser important things like running her own fashion design boutique from home, catering to tailors and visiting cloth shops with her clients before it is lunchtime.
She may be halfway through her lunch when a client who is running late may show up at the door and she’d go to them with a glass full of Chhaas only to be taunted by us over the weekends for lacking time management skills. In the afternoons she may choose to doom-scroll on Instagram or catch a web series on Netflix or simply go for a prep siesta but does she really deserve this downtime? Maybe not, as people who work from home don’t actually work and if they don't make the big bucks and just manage the home then altogether no point of having this conversation.
Come evenings, she may step out for work to forage some beads for the embroidery of her client’s lehenga or sometimes stay at home to prepare for dinner, if she hasn’t already done so in the morning. However, when we show up for dinner, feeling accomplished after our productive days and see her glued to her phone while she waits for us, we conveniently choose to ignore the day she has had and straight move onto asking her - what’s for dinner. We would squeal with joy if it is our favourite dish, frown with displeasure if not, however, we would easily forget ignoring her while she asked us for dinner suggestions in the morning. What’s more - we’ll talk about our day with her, acknowledge her side of the story occasionally and then retire for bed and end our day in peace. However, this woman manages to go to bed undervalued, underappreciated and unrewarded, being reduced to a few roles that she plays in her life - that of a wife, a daughter-in-law and a mother.
Is she allowed to embrace any other aspect of her life?
By the nature of design of our social fabric, all domestic decisions are taken keeping in mind that the mother will be available at all times and will be at everyone else’s service at home. If someone shows up unannounced, it is her duty to be hospitable and leave aside whatever else she is doing. If someone falls ill, it is solely her responsibility to look after the ailing and ensure they are back up on their feet. If the washing machine breaks down, she has to follow up with the technician countless times and be around till it gets fixed. Well, if it doesn’t get fixed, she may end up actually washing the clothes. If she throws a tantrum about managing all of this, we may or may not choose to help her out, but we will surely rebuke her for expressing her frustration and spoiling our day. She is destined to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
With every single day throwing newer challenges in her face, how will she ever look beyond her responsibilities and duties to espouse any other part of her persona. And most of us as family members will also stay away from planting the seed of this thought in her head and letting it grow as it may simply inconvenience us if she ever chooses to put herself first. Thus, probably my mom and most other moms of her generation may just remain moms all their lives putting a lid on the woman they otherwise are.
Her baggage that I carry as the daughter
As I hit my thirties and step into marital life, I get my first taste of reality that she has been so lovingly shielding me from all this while. She has raised me to be an independent woman with a mind and identity of my own. However, that does not dial down the expectations of our Indian society at large which is still deep rooted in patriarchy and cannot wait for the woman to take on the load of managing a home and lessen her identity to someone’s wife, daughter-in-law or mother.
While I am blessed to come from a fairly privileged family and also married into a progressive and supportive home, I still experience bearing the burden of the expectations of others and the constant need to seek their validation. From my mother’s life, I have learnt that the more you do for others around you, the higher the expectations and the taller the asks as time progresses. There is no concept of gratitude for a woman who takes on a lot not only physically but also emotionally and mentally day in and day out for you to live your life comfortably. She is called selfish if she chooses to prioritize herself for once or termed controlling if she ever dares to put forth a demand. And whatever you do and however hard you try, there is no escape from judgments especially for women in our country.
Hence my coping mechanism to deal with this skewed social fabric, that often does not work out in my favour is - to not be my mother’s daughter. I try to think of what my mother would have done in a particular domestic situation and sadly yet consciously do the exact opposite a lot of times to stop building a prison of expectations around me. The price I pay here is also losing out on all those nurturing aspects of mom’s persona that I would want to channelise to make this life worth living for me and my family. The compassion she has for people around her, her flexible outlook in accepting in any situation that she is faced with, her overall uncomplaining nature and empathy towards others in terms of accepting that not everyone can be like her. I am surely guilty of letting the rebel in me overshadow the softer, caring and empathetic half of myself.
I play my part, I am respectful and kind but I don’t try to take on other people’s problems and make them my own to solve for. I am approachable but not to the extent that you show no respect for my time as a working woman and show up at my door at an odd hour. Saving everybody else the trouble to judge, I proclaim myself to be a victim of my own mood swings to set the stage for healthy boundaries and avoid biting into any form of social interactions more than I can chew.
All said and done, it hasn’t been easy, as there have been many days when the social guilt from the years of conditioning and the overarching expectation of being just like my mother gets the better of me and casts its dark shadow on the choices I make. On these days, I remind myself of the life my mother has bestowed me with along with the confidence she has given me to live it on my own terms. If I were to lose myself and succumb to the thoughts, perceptions and expectations of our society then I would not only do a disservice to all her efforts in making me who I am today but also disable her to live that unfulfilled part of her life through me.
Only if I could untether my mother into a parallel universe
Ting! I see an Instagram notification on my phone and as I click on it, I see my mother reliving her early twenties while in her sixties, trekking in the Himalayas. She is surrounded by strangers whom she is quick to befriend and I see her beaming with joy as she unabashedly backpacks her way through majestic mountains leaving home the guilt of being there by herself and for herself.
She has a Whatsapp status that says “unavailable till further notice” and as she takes in the fresh mountain air, the only thoughts that cross her head are reaching the next campsite and indulging in some steaming hot Maggi and warming herself at night by the bonfire in the company of fellow solo travelers. Her legs, albeit older, are sturdy enough to walk her towards her dreams, she looks fitter by losing the weight of expectations of others and her vitality shines through her skin that is now more of a priority over what to make for lunch at home.
As this imaginary life that I wish for my mother fades into thin air, I pick up my phone only to ask her - how to fix a broken button on one of my skirts and while she’ll talk me through the whole process, she will also bombard my Instagram DM with a dozen similar DIY reels.
After all, she will always be my mom but I may never be her.