I have two younger brothers. We are blessed to have parents like ours. None of us has any complaints about our lives at all. Our parents did not really sit down and “teach” us anything. They lead by example and we learnt so many values just by watching them….
I belong to a big joint family. My father was the eldest member of our family. He took care of several things in our family right from the very beginning. Yes, we were rich and lived in a big house amidst several loving relatives. We did have a lot of fun too.
But I never got to spend much time with my Ma. We never had long chats or discussions. I could never ask her questions when I was curious about something because she was busy working in the kitchen along with my aunts!
My father owned a shop in the heart of the city. The best school was located close to our shop. So we would all dress up for school, get into our car and go off to school along with our father. Often we would get delayed if my father was held up in the morning with some work. But we were never punished for being late. We would just enter our classrooms and sit on the backbench without disturbing the class.
We never returned home after school hours! We would go to our aunt’s house to have our lunch during the lunch break. After school, we would go to her house again, drink a glass of milk and have some snacks. We would then play with our cousins for a while and get down to doing our homework! We did have fun. Yes. But we had to wait in my aunt’s house till my father closed down our shop at 8 p.m. Only then would we all return home from school!
I would get a chance to meet my Ma only when she combed my hair in the mornings. When we returned home, we would have our baths on our own, wear the clothes that my Ma had laid out for us and have our dinner with all our other cousins in our kitchen.
My Ma would be busy in the kitchen when we returned home from school. Often, we would be fast asleep by the time my Ma and my aunts finished having their dinner! During our vacations or whenever we had school holidays, she would wake us up at our usual time and ask us to help her around the house.
I learnt to wash the ‘matka’ and fill it with boiled and cooled drinking water. She would teach me to draw rangolis. She would get up at 4 a.m. on my father’s birthday and draw a huge colourful rangoli. She would then ask me to fill it with colours. She would snap at me if I filled the colours clumsily. She would insist that I learn to draw perfect rangolis like her but I would always smile at her with irritation and say, “Ma! I can’t draw rangolis like you! I am not interested in such things!” She would gently catch me by my ears, smile and say, “Do it for your father!”
Even today, I cannot draw perfect rangolis like her. I think, my youngest brother has taken after her. He draws perfect rangolis, paintings and loves taking care of all the art and artefacts in our house even now!
It was during these vacations that my Ma taught me to fold the clothes and put them away each evening. She would ask me to fill a silver ‘loti’ of water and keep it ready for my father along with a small laddoo or dry fruits or snacks so that he had something to eat as soon as he returned home – tired after the day’s work.
I saw her taking only a brief nap in the afternoons. She would tidy up our house first in the evenings and then do a bit of embroidery if she had a little free time. She would then go off to our main kitchen to prepare dinner for our family.
Today, I am a grandmother myself. I developed a passion for drawing a rangoli outside my marital home after getting married. But I know for sure that I will never be able to draw perfect rangolis like my Ma!
Yes, I do regret that I never got to spend a lot of time with my Ma. But I am proud of her too. She managed to teach my brothers and me so many things even during the little time that we spent together. I learnt to think of others first. I learnt to do my bit to make life comfortable and easy for my family members. I learnt to wake up early every single day only from my parents.
They never expressed their love for us openly or verbally. They were busy all through the day every day. Yet, we knew we were loved and felt good when they told us to do something. We always obeyed them because they told us to do everything in a very loving manner.
They never imposed their will on any of us. They knew we would never do anything wrong or mischievous. They trusted us so we grew up to be responsible children.
I don’t have any regrets about my childhood. At all. But I wish I had got the chance to spend more time with my parents when I was younger. I’m sure I could have learnt a whole lot more from them…..
Image sourced from:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rangoli,kolam,chennai,Tamil_Nadu382.jpg