A letter to God

Dear God,

You’ve had the privilege of my mother’s company for 6 days now. This is the first time in 20 years that she’s had 6 days without pain. For that I thank you.

She has lived a good life, raised a good family, been respectful to her elders and kind to those younger. She’s helped the needy and comforted the sick. She has raised more than just her own kids. And has done that well (if I may say so myself). You threw a lot of obstacles in her path – tests, as she liked to call them. She faced each of them with grace and a charming smile. She really did it her way.

She started off as a child with a mind of her own (boy did we learn that over the years!) who’d walk home in anger from school if the driver didn’t arrive in time in the Benz that was to take her home! That was the start of what we have since known as the fearless “lion” trait in her – something that stood her (and all of us around her) in good stead in years to come. And she had nerves of steel right from a very early age. She appeared on the front page of the Straits Times in Singapore as the brave 10 year old who called the ambulance that saved her mother who was shot through the chest right before her eyes. She kept her head – unfazed by anything that came her way for the rest of her life.

These nerves were then put to test at 18 when she married my father and moved to Bombay into a whole different life – a life of trains, buses, kerosene stoves, a massive joint family, and 2 teenage kids who were now hers to bring up. She came through with flying colours. She adapted with a smile. She turned this house (272, Enterprise) into a home. I remember this story about the time she went back to her parents in Singapore as a newly wed and cried in guilt because she was being driven around in a chauffeur driven car while her husband was slogging away in public transport. Such was her unconditional love for her new life. Oh – and she did a stellar job with her 2 teenage “sons” – I’ll let them add to that part of the story (Bharat Baya / Bob Baya – please feel free!).

Then you tested her by taking away her first child a few days after she gave birth. She once read out a little piece she wrote about Kiran and how You took him away. The words made me cry. You really broke her heart then but she accepted that as Your will and carried on. Then came Hiren and I (thanks for letting us be!). I don’t know how she did it, but she juggled a large family, bringing up 2 teenage “sons” and then 2 of her own little boys! But she did it with poise. She never missed a single school play, or a sports day or a prize ceremony or a report card day or a family obligation for that matter. It’s something she would later, if rather unimaginatively, call “Time Management” – and she was the head-mistress of that school!!

At school or otherwise, I always went that extra mile just to make her proud of me. I didn’t know then that her pride in us was unconditional. I remember my first Inter-school cricket game at Cross Maidan where I got out for a duck – she was there cheering me on! She didn’t really get cricket and all the fuss around it but the fact that her son was playing – however badly – was reason enough to cheer. I haven’t given up playing cricket badly ever since! It was always the sincerity of the effort that she put a premium on. Didn’t You once say “Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana”. There – she lived it.

She was a great driver!!! Probably the best woman driver I’ve known (my wife is a close 2nd)!!! As a kid I once told her she drove like a Bombay cab driver and she maintained that it was the biggest compliment I had ever given her. Clearly me thinking that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and that as a kid I wanted to marry her one day wasn’t as big a compliment!

She was the ultimate healer. She nursed me through lost school elections (contested for the post of head-boy and lost) that threatened to shatter my confidence, through break-ups in college (she gave the best relationship advice in the world – the problem was I didn’t always listen!), through my general teenage angst (tendency to not see shades of grey in this world and insist on black & white) and through the first time I moved out into the world on my own (comforted me through Stats nightmares in Calcutta that made me want to drop everything and come back to the security of home – she didn’t let me harbour that thought very long!).

She was kind. It came through in her maternal instinct – not only towards Hiren and I, but her 2 teenage sons who owe her their teenage years, her 3 younger sisters who looked up to her like a mother, younger cousin who spent her college days with mum and to some extent even my other cousins who were subject to mum’s dose of a Gram Flour (Channa Atta) Bath on Sundays, Rose Syrup infused milk for strength and general army-inspired discipline. She was respectful towards her elders and wouldn’t tolerate anything but that from us and was kind to those younger. For that, she was loved.

She loved being around young people. She was always happy with our home being the "meeting point" for all our friends. No one ever left hungry. She lived and re-lived her youth through Bob Baya and Bharat Baya first, then with Hiren and me and then with Sandhya. She was the ultimate "cool mom" with a super sense of humor to go with it.

And the illness. I thought You dealt her a really tough hand in that respect. At various points, I have been angry with You for that. But her unadulterated love for life kept her going. In her illness she saw pain, but she also saw You. I was always amazed at how her illness challenged my faith in You but only made hers stronger. Everytime she was down, we’d wait for her to start scolding someone about keeping things neat and tidy. That was the sure-fire sign that the lion was roaring again. And boy did she roar!!!

But now she’s gone. Left a big fat void. A void that we never want to get rid of as it serves as a constant reason to celebrate the life she lived and the impact she had on us.

Thanks for making sure I got here in time. As she went, she was surrounded by people who loved her and people she loved. I had my hand on her head and I hope she knew I was there and that I’ll always love her and be her little one.

In closing – we found this newspaper cut out in her drawer the day after she passed on. It’s titled “Why your mother always walks beside you”. An excerpt from it:
"Your mother is always with you… She’s the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street. She’s the smell of soap in your freshly laundered socks. She’s the cool hand on your brow when you’re not well. Your mother lives inside your laughter. She’s crystallised in every tear drop. She’s the place you come from, your first home. She’s the map you follow with every step you take. She’s your first love and your first heartbreak, and nothing on earth can separate you. Not time, not space… not even death!"

God – that’s my mother for you. Our loss is your gain.

Nitin