Growing up isn’t so crotchety when a doting mother takes to
hard labor and see her off springs placed a little better than where she has
been. Like every other home, there were differences of opinion, of judgments,
the weekly “bellows burst” in the
home I was born in. But then dinner times we had our share of laughters, our
share of sharing the loaf of bread too.
My mother, a meticulous warm cent per cent pure housewife
with the strength of a ten armed goddess held up the tent we were sheltered
under. She was the door to entrance and exit checking, securing, locking,
unlocking all that wanted an access to our layout. Thus most community gossips,
society sweet- sour talks never found ways to our ears. There were always these
words to guide us: “you mustn’t return
home with trouble”. Trouble here
meant complains or seeds of it from people we were hanging out with and people
who were keeping a tab upon our growing up days. It isn’t easy for girls
growing up in India with the kind of mindset spread across. But fortunately I could
circumnavigate all the tangy talks. They quite became redundant in my busy life
with no room for anything but my own little world with handpicked people to
disperse the varied tinctures of emotion. One thing she taught was not to pay
much heed to the idle mouth.
Her words became our gospel.
"There will always be
someone to talk..there will always be someone to spittle loads of discouraging words
on you…but you go on, paying no heed."
This pleasant misty world wasn't here forever. The second
tenure in an unguided world just opens the door to a sultry clear world. It
demands response. It prays for reaction. One’s sweet talk goes through
uncountable scans, ifs and buts. Honesty here becomes silent fugitive. One’s
politeness is the others’ reign.
Most people outside our mother’s nest would wait, watch and
hunt for troublesome moments which bring us a step or two down from where we
had been. It’s a world where we are being predated upon. All our education, our
degrees fail when it comes to facing real- life challenges. It isn’t warm out
there, its skin burning hot! It has very few incubators to pamper us and
certainly has no red carpets spread to welcome our niceties, our boisterous
belief and Jane Austenian ironed out principles. We are out and out absolutely
on our own.
Falling, flipping, fidgeting and picking ourselves up come
on a rotation. Each of which teach us the ways and means to be in and out of
avalanche in front of us. They make us strong, they make us go- for- it people.
In no way am I saying that my mother failed to teach me, she
just did not tell me that there was a dark, dim always challenging one’s wit
and patience kind of world out there preying outside her honeycomb.
People in the open enjoy belittling the other. They salivate
on fermented tell tale. They take variety as their spice of life far too
seriously and those who cannot be a part are made the sitting duck.
My mother did not tell me... there were society scumbags I
should prepare myself for. Instead of nurturing a coconut, she jealously
guarded a rose from the sun. But that was my mother. Life did not as it does
not.
Life is full of storms: fierce or dwarf and so are the giants
and demons all over. We just need to armor ourselves with the warmth our
mothers have wrapped us with and become seasoned beings if nothing more. Rowing the boat as expected till we are timed-out.
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