My Mother

 

NOTE - purely a personal reflection, and more for me to reconcile and come to terms with a difficult subject, so feel free to skip this post as it might be triggering to a few

So, this is a different post. Very little to be positive about and a difficult subject that I feel compelled to write about.

My mom passed away in June 2024 after a 2 week ICU stay post getting a stroke (avoidable we realised since she had been brought in after the golden hour, but we tried).

I still haven’t come to terms with her passing away. I went through the motions where the rituals help us go through enough to recover and move on with regular life at the end of the rituals.

I couldn’t mourn my mom or felt much grief. There was immediate acceptance and a bit of sadness.  In the last decade or so, the relationship had died and both of us hadn’t tried.  She seemed very comfortable with the choice and I had let my anger at the way my family and I had been treated overcome any possibility of a reconciliation – not that my mother even bothered. It was clear she was happy with the choice she had made and even though both of us had some affection she had moved on, and I accepted that.

A brief aside – I am an abuse survivor – no, not sexual abuse but physical, verbal, emotional and mental abuse that I suffered as a child and attempted suicide at the age of 8 when I couldn’t figure out why there was violence everyday in my life.  Providence had other plans and I managed to recover and succeed somewhat. My biggest regret is that when I succeeded I returned to the same environment of abuse, neglect and exploitation expecting things to be better but they weren’t. Sadly both my wife, child and my in-laws were not spared and also drawn into this which makes it so much harder. There are times when I remember regretfully some of the incidents where my family showed zero remorse or acknowledgement and I really wish my suicide attempt had gone through successfully given that I foolishly returned to my family – at least I wouldn’t have to see this ugly hatred all over again.

Anyways the context is important to understand.  Parents is the difficult relationship where I am grateful and in love but my survival and sanity requires me to difficultly recognise they didn’t always treat me fairly especially compared to my siblings but even worse there was abuse and exploitation.

My mom wanted her second child to be a daughter and prayed to lord Shiva.  Instead a son was born – me.   My dad unlike my grandfather, had kids in immediate succession.  There were three sons born within a period of about 4 years, including one miscarriage.  My granddad on the contrary had six children with a perfect symmetry that is difficult to achieve given natures’ randomness. He had three daughters and three sons – each placed within a gap of exactly three years each.  My dad sadly didn’t learn from him and my mom’s health and also his second and third child suffered because of this.

I was an underweight sickly child and pretty slow in terms of walking, talking and fell sick all the time.  But there was another aspect that pained my parents that was I was feminine and that compounded matters. 

Both my parents were uncomfortable with this and continue to be even now.  I used to be dutiful and worked hard to get them to accept me and it was taken for granted that I could be relied on to do whatever they wanted me to (and in future, they treated my father in law same way).

Anyways an aspect that is interesting is especially when it came to me, I saw my parents to be very coldly "British" and I also am like them in that aspect. Extremely uncomfortable expressing any emotions of love, affection, warmth amongst each other or being frank.  We never had any discussion.

They were usually more expressive to my elder brother and my younger brother but not to me. (this remains with me – nobody believes the abuse victim, and I didn’t bother getting people to believe me).

Anyways I had to get this difficult preamble out of the way before really mourning my mom’s passing away.

A constant theme in the last four decades since we three passed college was that my parents wanted to be independent... from us!!. When the three of passed our college and about to leave Vijayawada my dad who was in Tiruppur then had actually asked me why I couldn’t take my brothers with me to where I was doing my MBA and I just laughed.  I had taken care of them for two years in Vijayawada. I wasnt allowed to join the post graduate courses I had got calls for and instead was forced to work in Vijayawada while taking care of my brothers  as they were studying. Both of them did their post-graduation but an exception was made for me (But this was a sign of what was to come and I ignored it to my own detriment sadly).

The nearly two years that they were apart from us had given them a lot of freedom they enjoyed with travel unencumbered. My mom had a difficult menopause and the doctors had advised that she travel and her mind be occupied as much as possible with recreation and travel was a good solution.

So they travelled and enjoyed themselves. But somehow their sons – me and my younger brother, especially for my mom seemed to now be a millstone they were not too happy to have with and would openly show resentment repeatedly against us.  This wasn’t as pronounced till my dad retired where they managed to tolerate us, till all three of us were placed, but once my dad retired they didn’t like us returning home. Something that escaped me and I thought this was ok because, like hello, parents and also I had barely spent time with them as much as my brothers had but I was wrong.

The resentment was especially from my mom, because my dad never had really cared or bothered much. Especially after his retirement he really would do whatever he wanted and we never were a constraint for him, so while he didn’t like us staying with us he would do exactly what he wanted.

My mom was more restrained and considerate of her duties – a trait she passed on to me. But this was something she was unwilling to do when it came to me and my family. She was happy benefiting from us like they did enormously but would grudge even if we were to request any small help.

The point of this post and sorry for coming to it this late, was the insight on what exactly was she resentful for? Because today that is what I mourn. Irrespective of what happened to me, I feel strongly this wasn’t the life she wanted.

What was she missing because of her children?  She enjoyed a certain level of freedom in the last couple of decades. She was able to interact with folks freely without any of her children being around. (Sadly these weren’t people who we got along but gave an insight on what she really liked).

Old songs, black and white films make me sad, depressed because it reminds me of my mom’s childhood.   My mom was crazy about films and music. She would listen to all india radio all through the day especially in the afternoon when she was alone cooking or biding time.  She loved reading hindi crime magazines – especially Manohar kahaniyan which discussed crime especially murders were her favorite. She was obsessed about news of crime and would watch Nalini Singhs’ crime kanoon report every evening on doordarshan and get upset if we had guests at that time and wouldn’t reduce the volume instead making it higher.  The arushi talwar case had her entranced and hooked for months and she would enjoy wactching the updates – only the popcorn was missing.

But films – yes films were her favorite. She was from a time when the bioscopes were in vogue. She would use the gesture of her fingers making a circle on one eye – how children would put their eye in a bioscope to watch the films. This was a gesture saying lets go to the cinema.  The obsession was so strong she wouldn’t mind braving going to a cinema to watch a film.  Remember it was still hard in the 80s, 90s for women to travel in a space where men were present and it was brave for women who entered that space. So she would watch morning and matinee shows sometimes with folks in our circle but take me if I was at home and I would happily go with her. The films were forgettable but she wanted to see something, anything.  Pretty similar to listening to both hindi film music as well as devotional music on Radio.

She was especially in love with her roots – which were in Maharashtra where she had grown up. So even Marathi film music, bhajans as well as classical songs were her favorite.  She would love watching ZEE MARATHI and mi marathi – everything from the morning forecast to the cooking shows to the evening fun programs (home minister etc.).

So where did her children (ie me and my family) really stop her?  An indication was the time she spent at Mangalore.  She had her regular accompaniment who took her around and they’d visit ice cream parlours, and eat foodstuffs. She would visit every function they were invited to – from weddings, thread ceremonies, funeral mournings, childbirths to religious poojas, even travelling for temple fairs.  They didn’t mind the hardships or difficulties and putting others at trouble for this and didn’t even bother checking beforehand but would just barge in (I know because a lot of the folks they encroached into were my in-laws and their close relatives but no one complained, and in fact they welcomed them – a positive trait I think my parents abused but no regrets on that count.)

She got religious towards the last few decades, more pronounced than she always was.  But she still was interested in the other side. There was still a lot of interest in watching the late night shows that discussed crime. She would devour books, and loved talking to people and discuss personal scandals and escapades with folks the unsavoury details. 

The interesting point she knew and was aware of was that she simply didn’t have it in her to deal with such people and their wiles – I know this because I am her replica that way.  There was a naivete and gullibility, as well as trustworthiness and faith in people plus wanting to be seen as a good person and not give anyone trouble.  She would easily be gaslighted, exploited, cheated, swindled even abused – and a lot of this happened by people close to her but she continued unabated to be with them, even encouraging them instead of keeping a distance.  One of the reasons it was clear that we weren’t meant to have servants or regular househelp was how easy it was for them to steal from us- there were disturbing episodes of such incidents.

Towards the end she reconciled somewhat – even if it was grudgingly and resentfully that her life was meant to be this way -very very far from what she wanted it to be.  In the last few years of her life my dad couldn’t walk, so that meant mom had to be at home and couldn’t go out every evening or through the day that she had enjoyed doing because she was taking care of dad and served him from early morning to night. She couldn’t watch her shows till he went to sleep. Her close accompaniments had moved out of the city. 

But she had still enjoyed her freedom so much that she didn’t want to move to her eldest son’s home when he says he offered.

All this makes me think, especially when I remember a few incidents from my childhood, of what life she wanted to really lead.  She envied women who looked good and dressed up confidently. There were a few women who lead lives bravely they wanted to – in those days people didn’t speak very positively of them (interestingly neither did my mom – she discouraged me from ever considering romantic relationships!). There was hypocrisy there but on the whole I think she wanted to be able to make a choice – her choice of how she wanted to lead her life the way she wanted to.  I think I don’t want to elaborate further, but know this is what she missed the most and hence her resentment.

She made peace with that reality and took out the frustration of all people on me, because I had been compliant all along – but towards the end I couldn’t take any more of this, and feel sad if it made her upset.

What I realise is that this was her choice and in a ‘free world’ she should have been able to lead her life exactly the way she wanted. If she wanted to work, study further through higher education, or start a business, pursue arts or even relationships – she should have been able to do whatever she wanted.  Even if it meant being knocked around and facing betrayals, more than those she faced even in a normal socially acceptable lifestyle.  I think this was a trade off she was comfortable with but sadly never could go for. She saw some of that freedom in the last few decades but that lead only to frustration.

Today I still haven’t fully come to terms with her death (and there’s no true mourning yet as I don’t feel her loss, I write like she’s still present) what I mourn is the woman she wanted to be but couldn’t. I feel sad that she was denied this, but I hope she finds closure in the afterlife. I pray for her to achieve eternal salvation and no rebirth.  But if ever she does achieve re-birth I hope in her new life she is able to do and live exactly that she wants. 

Unlike in this life she lived.

OM SHANTI.