Another one about mom and me! This blog should be aptly called Anchored To the Sun, a little about me, my mother and my sin city! Except that the three cannot co-exist.
I do not remember how old I was. I definitely wasn't ten. Maybe 8 ish. It was Diwali time. Mom handed me a vati (= bowl) of geroo, the tangerine colored clay spread on the floor so that Rangoli patterns stand out. It was my opportunity! I was asked to spread the clay evenly outside our door. I was going to be preparing the base on which mom would make Rangoli patterns passersby stopped and complimented her on! As I walked towards the door, the vati slipped out of my hands its contents splattering on the floor. Dark, tangerine colored blobs! I do not know why I panicked. Why I thought what had happened was irreversible! Why I felt a strong urge to wipe all traces of the clumsy accident before mom could find out! Those were the days when my lower lip stuck out, chin quivered and I wanted to disappear for something as small as dropping a glass of water!! It was not mom. I catastrophized it. Like I was at that moment. What happened after that was unforgivable. I wiped the self-created mess with a "thing" I thought no one cared for, no one would miss and no one needed! I had always seen it in the cupboard, old, untouched and apparently useless. It was a Batwa. It cleaned the mess alright! It didn't stay hidden. Mom found out. In a quiet and calm voice, she explained to an 8-ish year old her loss! That Batwa was handmade. By her. When she was a little girl. Way before I arrived. When she was but just a girl and not "mother". Before dad, before marriage, when she was unknown to all of us! Not a part of this family. Not someone we know now. She held it for me to see. Little Miss Muffet and her spider embroidered in red, green and I forget the third color. Didn't matter. It was all tangerine now. She kept it for 22 years and an 8-ish year old ruined it within seconds. My mom must have lost some more of herself that day! Another precious bit from days that belonged only to her ruined by someone from her "now" who didnt know her for nuts. Maybe still doesn't. That improper, less boring,more interesting, idiosyncratic, un mom like person! Very unfair that I got to know her only after she became a mother. And to boot, I snatched a very precious part of her.
I still wonder what irked her, what ticked her, what overjoyed her, what saddened her, what she thought, how she lived long before anyone of us happened to her!
Each time I chance upon a prized possession from my school days which I have kept with utmost care I anticipate a future presence in my life ruining it...innocently but surely! I know I will not mind it. Maybe my mom didn't too. Maybe that's what being a mother means! To find oneself always! Doggedly.
I would want my kids to know who their "proper", "by default a tad boring because she is making the rules" mother really was!
