For her

It was another May afternoon. An 11-year-old boy stood staring at a departing black-yellow cab at a new-found place called hostel till a bell rang for the evening snacks. That was the first night the boy would spend without his mother by his side. That was the first time also he felt like a leaf in a turbulent river — nothing to cling on.

Almost a same feeling happened to him when he was barely four years old. His mother was away on an official training and those three months — also the summer — were enough to make him forget about the entity called mother. On a day she returned from training, he was seen standing at a corner of the room on a bed meant for him and her mother. He refused to go despite repeated requests from the lady — who has been his companion throughout all the four years — who joined the service just weeks before, from which she would return only some 25 years later, on March 31 this year.

Images drift by just like that — of the evenings he and his elder sister waiting for a pack of Amul Crisp, of the journeys to Behrampore on DSTC buses amid the sal forests on the either side of a picturesque highway to Ilambazaar, of the occasional visit to a suburban town of Barasat from the steel city of Durgapur with two leather bags, of the evenings before the short trips while his mother would pack bags and toys and bat-balls and what not!

So much to learn from the lady with indomitable spirit to take care of the two kids, as her husband was away most of the time of the year to various cities. The way she taught her children how to pick the best of the item in the morning markets, how to be self-sufficient, how not to feel uncomfortable in any situation, how not to be judgmental about anything, how to bury the ego and move on in life has been amazing. She nurtured the tender minds with an informidable power of femininity.

Today, when the rest of the world was celebrating Mother’s Day, she was spotted in the kitchen making food for her children, quite oblivious of the fact that it was supposed to be HER day. But how does it affect her? It’s Mother’s Day for her, every day.
Probably that’s the reason she asked her son when he was on way to office: "Kal to asbi na, kothay khabi tui (Since you’re not coming home tomorrow, where will you have your food)?" I just stopped, but could not say a word in reply. That has been my Ma, as always.

©Supratim Pal, 2009