My mother – Part 1

After my recent return from abroad, my right foot started acting up. It does so a couple of times a year – after-effects of a really bad Chikungunya attack in 2006. Usually, this is alleviated with two days of Naproxen. This time though, it lingered. When I mentioned to my mother that perhaps the ‘definite’ arthritis I will get in that foot (as per my then doctor) has already set in, she suggested I use a heating pad for some time each day. Wonder of wonders, I can see a definite difference – better than any pill and any stretches I have tried these past three weeks. This is but one of innumerable times she has been correct.

My mother has always been my figurative ‘punching bag’. If I am upset, irritated, angry, sad, in a quandary, whatever (as much as I dislike that word, it fits perfectly here), I call her up, take it all out on her and, until recently, without moderating my words – literally no filters. I am sure I worried her tremendously with my outbursts, but it was immediately a load off my mind. Not only would she calm me down but she would always advice me of the mature, correct way forward – if I followed what she said, I never would have even the smallest of prick of conscience as to whether I should have done any differently.

In the latter part of the movie English Vinglish, Sridevi’s young son knocks over a tray full of her hand made boondhi laddus made especially for a wedding – Sridevi stops her husband from berating the child and just proceeds to make a whole new tray of that most labour intensive of sweets. That scene immediately reminded me of my mother. Once when a huge bowl of ground almond paste laid out by my mother was knocked over by some children. The kids were appalled by what they had inadvertently done, but what they remember was my mother’s reaction – she did not get angry or say a cross-word. She just proceeded to clean up and to soak a whole other batch going on to make the intended badam halwa – for ten.

On another occasion, in Lusaka (Zambia), my brother recollects a visitor looking aghast at my 5′ 2″ mother standing on a tall stool in her saree, arms over her head, changing a bulb in an overhead light fixture watched by my father and some other male relatives below. To her credit, she did not even think to ask them. I was not born then but it is most likely that my father was telling her to not attempt these things because it might not work and/or she might fall and we should just call an electrician – knowing my mother, she would not have batted an eye-lid, proceeding to allay my father’s fears in the most gentle of voices, stating that she thought (she rarely said she knew something absolutely – because if she were wrong, it would be pointed out ad nauseam and by many) she knew what she was doing and if she ran into trouble, she would call the said electrician. My mother was efficient, fearless, dynamic and a risk-taker, managing to exercise all these abilities without ruffling feathers in the traditional and orthodox family she married into.

This was all the more creditable since the family she was born into was not orthodox – her father had given her good advice though – telling her to be polite and respectful always and to just listen and follow what was told to her. She would not have problems that way, he said. After all, she was going in as the eldest daughter-in-law into a family with two brothers in law, and four sisters-in-law, all but one of whom was older than her. She found many things odd/interesting but never duplicitous or combative, she quickly adjusted and was doted on, and appreciated by, her in-laws.

A couple of years after my brother’s birth, my father was posted to Lusaka – this in the 60s, the first in the family to go abroad and to an unknown quantity like Africa. it was a huge move. My mother embraced it completely with open arms. She was always mild mannered but inside lay a heart of steel and immense ability to handle whatever life might throw her way. Soon after the three of them landed in Zambia, my father threw her a bombshell. The one thing she had told my father before marriage was that she did NOT wish to work, focusing on the family and raising children instead. Now he said “You have to go to work.” My father explained that there wasn’t any other way as with his parents in India, the only way to afford travelling back and forth to visit was if she worked. There happened to be a vacancy at Zambia Airways for an accounts officer – my mother, a mathematician by training, was quick on the uptake and learned the necessary skills. She got the job and kept it – for years. The benefit of family air travel was most useful in their circumstances too. The fact that she was beloved at the airline was evident when, some 12 years later, in Lilongwe, an Alitalia pilot noticed her buying tickets at a local travel agency and came up saying, “Why, Mrs. Nathan, it is so good to see you!”

Moving to Gusau from Lusaka was a big change. In Lusaka, everything we needed was available. Small town Nigeria was a different ball game. Much of what was essential, including non perishable groceries, had to be ordered in London and shipped. The rest my mother grew. Literally. She actually cultivated toor dhal in her back yard and had it painstakingly threshed and winnowed. Her grandmother remarked that even she had never had to do such things.

While in Gusau, they discovered that I was on the way. The whole extended family, and my mother especially, was delighted that I was a girl. After six months in Delhi with her parents, my mother, with my brother and me in hand, returned to Gusau. She went armed with all the accessories needed for my baths and ablutions – oil baths every day for the first year and every other day for the next four years using coconut oil, gram flour and turmeric, and the traditional ora marundhu (tonic) after every bath. Besides health and nutrition, my mother continued to take this painstaking personal care over my hair and skin right upto when I left home after marriage (and over the phone after that!) – it is definitely because of her that I never even once thought of cutting my hair and could not be tempted by the many lovely shampoo advertisements all depicting impossibly shiny, straight and tangle-free hair.

With a new baby came the issue of vaccinations – my mother being very careful on health matters, checked to find out where shots with the potency and appropriate refrigeration were available – that was in Zaria. All four of us made that journey – about 200 km away – a 4-5 hour drive as and when needed. Add in the fact that we NEVER ate out – since we partook of food only at Pure Vegetarian restaurants that were (then) non-existent. So, prior to every single journey, she was busy in the kitchen – making and packing food for the whole family – according to each one’s varied tastes.

Part 2 is here.