I was 22 years old when I met Ma. I walked into her life fully formed and all grown up physically like that guy in the Mahabharat who is born fully formed to his Mom. She hated me on sight;told me so in so many words when we graduated to talking for long periods of time, sharing insights and laughter and ginger tea on cloudy days in her airconditioned living room. I was fresh out of college, cocksure and swaggering with self importance, too full of myself to realise that I could be wrong.
Ma was, is the daughter and the wife of a Civil servant. Born to order and good living, the eldest of two daughters, she and I have a lot in common - A love of books, baking, crockery and glassware, the ability to see beyond the outer shell of a person, good judges of charachter, the ability to adopt people and make them ours, to see life as it is, the inability to pass by something beautiful without admiring it, an inherent admiration for exquisite enbroidery, a love for the color black and exquisite raw silks, a sibling that we've mothered, the inability to put ourselves first, the ability to look after any and everything that god puts in our path, people around us who are intensely jealous of our bonding and a sense of personal space that does not allow us to transgress certain boundaries in other people's lives, a work ethic that leaves no room for sloppiness and is hinged on perfection - we share all this and much more.
It was this basis of commonalities that allowed us to settle into a comfortable, asexual relationship that we gave the conventional tag of Mother - Son or as I put it Mother - Daughter because she already had two sons and I didn't want to share that space, I wanted to be special.
It was not easy coming to that stage. We started working together in the HR Department of the Engineering college that we worked for - she as the head of that department and I as an entry level professor. Academic life was not without its ups and downs and all I knew was based on my perceptions as a student. Although she hated me on first sight, she recognised me for what I really was at that time - a directionless kid with tremendous potential and a huge bundle of good intentions with which I was paving my path to hell.
She decided to take me in hand and gradually under her tutelage I grew - my natural talents sharpened and polished under her artistic ability to bring out the best in people and hone it while at the same time minimising their drawbacks making me into a better person.
Somewhere along the way she grew to like me and more than that - trust me. And I? I loved her from the beginning. Loved her with the adulation that only sons can have for their mothers and no other woman comes close. I had lost my birth mother a long time ago, so long ago that her memory only lives in the smell of my perspiration, my inability to speak my mind at crucial times, my love for method and order, my talent for embroidery and my eyes that are so like hers that my father finds it diffcult to meet them for fear of finding her reproach in them. My sister was happily married and my sense of duty and my experiences over the years had made me wiser - I seldom touched her circle of perfection, I had no right to.
But Ma? I loved her, still do. My actions hitherto unchecked were scrutinised to ensure that I didn't fall in her estimation, I redoubled all my efforts to be what she wanted me to be and more.
Two years of trying got me into a B - School and another two struggle filled years when her love and affection in the form of moral support, pep talks and food kept me going I landed a job On Campus. She was thrilled. But at the same time I had to move out of J----r. I hated Delhi. I'd call her and cry. She'd be stern and soft in equal measure reinstilling my faith in myself and my abilities. She was my anchor of goodness in a strange environment where I could not help but bang against meanness no matter how hard I tried. For the last few years I had a place to call home, a place where I'd find myself and someone who'd talk - we loved each other's company.
In Ma's beautifully apportioned drawing room, we found the time and space to be ourselves, to talk about any and everything, to re-evaluate our lives and find the strength to go in the other's solidarity. I spilled all my secrets in that room - the saree I embroidered for my sister when my nephew was born, my love for a girl who could never love me back, my hopes, my fears and my dreams.
That beautifully lit room with it's silk drapes and crystal ornaments is as familiar to me as my own hand, each little change that she made I'd appreciate and assimilate. I still conjure it up and the most important thing I can still see is her - tall, dignified, regal, unruffled, and always willing to listen.
Gradually the good times rolled by - enough money for my needs and wants and still some left over for my friends and family. On one of my last trips to J----r, I saw a beautiful raw silk saree - black with exquisite silver paisleys - her favorite print and I bought it for her. I felt good knowing that I had finally got it right.
I should have seen it coming, I should have known that my fate does not allow for the presence of a mother in my life. My Nani told me long ago. One day not long after I had presented her with the saree, she sent me an email teling me that there was now no need for us to stay in touch, a short email - exactly six lines long. Ironical. This June we would have known each other for six years in the parlance of physical time although I always felt like I'd known her forever.
There were times like when we went to the IIFT this winter when other women would stop her and say enviously, "I wish my son were more like yours!" She'd swell with pride and I? I'd feel finally like I belonged somewhere, like I had an identity, a heritage,a home. We'd planned to go again next year, I don't know if I will.
I was eight years old, standing beside my mother's funeral pyre when I last felt this lost. When I set it afire I felt that I was burning much more than my mother's body. I was sure that I'd never feel like that again. I was wrong. I felt the same way reading Ma's email, lost, abandoned, cast adrift.
I'm older, stronger and wiser now. I'm 28. Yet I feel like an eight year old standing beside a funeral pyre willing a dead body to come alive. But I still have the strength to say - Goodbye Ma and thanks for showing me what it's like to have a mother. Thanks for all the memories......
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