I AM NOT A MOTHER, BUT A MOTHER I AM

“How about your children?’ I got asked again yesterday.

‘No, we don’t have children,’ I said smilingly.

‘Oh, I am so..so.. sorry,’ the lady was very apologetic, almost as if she feared she had touched a raw nerve inadvertently and hurt me deeply.

I took her hand in mine, smiled and said, ‘No, you don’t have to be. It’s OK. I am fine with it.’

I have been in this position numerous times. It invariably happens when I meet people for the first time and have a conversation, especially with women. Interestingly, it has not always been this courteous.

I have had instances of people telling me that I am lucky to not have the hassles of parenthood. Occasionally, I have also had people telling me with a twinge of disdain that I would never understand the struggles of a mother, could not imagine the stress that comes with it at every stage of life and it was easy for me to wax eloquent on exam pressure, adolescent behavior and other parental concerns. I have even had people comment that I look young and slim for my age only because I never bore a child. Perhaps. Perhaps.

But here’s the real thing. I am a mother. In several ways. Every time someone apologizes when I say we have no children, this is what I want to tell them with my touch.

‘Don’t feel for me. I don’t feel deprived. Not because I have overcome it. Not because I have resigned to life and its vagaries. But because I have been a mother, without bearing a child or rearing one.

I have been a tutor for 18 years. And being a tutor is not the same as being a teacher in a school. The difference is the love that grows between me and my children in the long years that they spend with me. Every time I have taken a student in, I have felt as if I became a mother again. I adopt them for the period that they are with me, feel responsible, feed them with every nugget of knowledge, wisdom and love that I can and pray for their well-being.

I do whatever I can to bring out the best in them and not for a split second think that I can be sloppy in my duty.

It is unconditional, because I am fully conscious that they are not ‘mine’ in the real sense of the word and will leave me as soon as the time is up. But then, they would have left me even if they were ‘mine.’

The absence of possession makes me feel free. The fact that the children who come into my life, my students or others that I know, are not essentially ‘mine’ helps me love them equally. I have loved them impartially. I have accepted them into my life without judging their qualities.

There is no selfishness in my affection for them because there is no string attached. And at some point during our journey, they become part of my soul, and that is enough for me.

Today, as the world celebrates Mothers’ Day, I want to give all the mothers who handed their sons and daughters to me for a point in time a hug and thank them for giving me my moments of motherhood. I want to tell them that in a strange, unintended way, they added more meaning to my life.

Bird of Heaven

The roughed-out doodled sheet is lying unattended on the table. The husband’s glance falls on it as he passes by. Curiosity piqued, he takes it and asks, ‘What is this?’

I shrug. It is an instinctive response that doesn’t mean much.

‘You made it?’ he asks, saucer-eyed.

I nod and smile, feeling very self-conscious.

‘How did you do it?’ I notice the streak of disbelief in his voice.

‘One stroke at a time,” I say, taking the paper back from him.

‘But it looks so complicated.’ He can’t wrap his head around it. He turns it around a couple of times to figure what it is.

‘It isn’t so complicated when you do it one stroke at a time. Isn’t that how dreams are realized and goals are achieved? Isn’t that how milestones are reached? One step at a time?’

As he looks on, still stupefied, I explain to him that when I began, it was just a small patch of doodle signifying nothing. Then as the sketch slowly grew on the paper, bit by bit, something seemed to emerge out of it. It made me follow a blind instinct that led me to a certain shape. I soon realized I could indeed convert this random, mindless doodle into something meaningful.

‘Thus, this!’ I say waving the paper in front of him.

‘And what exactly is it?

‘Umm… I think I will call it Bird of Heaven, perhaps?’

‘And where did you learn to do this?’

‘Nowhere. Just improvised on the kolam (rangoli) drawing skills that I acquired as a kid. It seems there is this new art form called zentangle. I don’t know how to zentangle, but I know how to draw kolams.’

Then I add, ‘Actually, there is nothing miraculous about it. No rocket science or genius involved. I just drew on my old skills, put a new spin on it, developed bit by bit, and voila!’

He gives me an acknowledging smile and taps my head. ‘I know what you mean. Good luck on your plans for the new venture. It looks challenging at this point, but I know you will get there, slowly, one stroke at a time.’

‘Yes, I will,’ I say, tracing the plumes of the Bird of Heaven with my finger. ‘All beginnings are often insignificant. Just a dot, a line. And when you persist, it becomes a whole new picture. You don’t know how you made it, but you did, after all. Is this what ‘no looking back’ means?’ I ask reflectively.

I understand, I do

It was late morning on Easter Sunday. I rang the bell at an acquaintance’s house and waited. There wasn’t much movement inside, making me wonder if the people in the house had not returned from the mass yet. I rang again. It took a while to be answered.

‘Who is it?’ It was the full-time maid, Lincy’s voice. I replied. She had joined the family only recently, but knew me well.

‘Happy Easter,’ I said happily, as soon as she opened the door. She greeted me back, with a mild smile that didn’t quite reach the corner of her eyes. There was something missing in it, but I don’t make much of it at that time.

‘No one in the house?’ I asked, noticing the calm behind her. It was clear that there was no one in the house.

‘Yes, there are. I had a son. He passed away a year ago. He was the sole earning member in my family. He used to take care of the whole family. I have a daughter and a grandchild. Exactly a year after my son died, my son-in-law abandoned my daughter, and married someone else. She and her child are now with my husband. That’s why I am here doing this job. Why do all misfortunes come together?’ Her voice broke into shards of pain.

I stood gasping, watching the middle aged woman begin to sob and give details. The quietness in the house from where she had emerged seemed to deepen and assume a sinister quality. ‘No, Lincy, you must not cry on a good day like this,’ I said, lowering my voice deliberately to soothe her rising anguish.

‘There is no good day in my life. No Christmas, no Easter. I have only this sorrow. I can’t even weep here openly. I do it when I go out to dump the garbage every day.’

I felt a lump in my throat. I am a mushy, emotional thing. It takes very little for me to feel the sting in the eyes. People’s sad stories can rob my sleep. It can throw me off balance.

Empathy, at times, can be severely punishing. It can make one feel utterly helpless and incapacitated. And on occasions, it makes us adopt their pain. It can be very debilitating. But that cannot take away from our responsibility to offer succour to those who need it, can it? But then, what does one say to a woman who is telling a life tale of such acute distress?

Every pain is extreme and unparalleled for the person enduring it. The cruelest thing one can do towards them is to philosophize and undermine their feelings. A lesser evil is to compare it to other people’s dire conditions in an attempt to assuage this person. The ‘you are better off than millions of others’ maxim that trivializes her woes.

So I cut all the crap and said with the deepest sympathies that I was capable of expressing in that moment, ‘I understand your pain.’ I put my right arm out in an attempt to give her a gentle hug.

‘Oh, I am sweating, and will be smelling,’ she said, trying to avoid my embrace and wiping her tear-streaked face on her sleeve.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, and gave her a hug. I caught a faint smell of raw fish on her. It was probably the closest witness to her story. I heard her whimper on my shoulder and fought to hold my tears back. I had no means to mitigate her pain. All I had was a sparing expression, ‘I understand.’

But that seemed enough to her. A minute later, she gave me a smile, held my hand gratefully and said, ‘Thank you. Please pray for me.’

I promised her I would. As I began to walk away, she called out from behind, ‘Don’t tell these people about it. I haven’t told them anything.’

It was shattering to think that she was spending her days without giving the people she worked for (and lived with) a hint of what she was suffering silently. I didn’t seek explanations for it.

Later that day, when I heard of the bombings in Sri Lanka, I added several anonymous people in my prayer along with Lincy. I wished I could tell each of them, ‘I can’t change the situation, but I understand your sorrow. I do.’

My words would have travelled and touched their lives in ways unknown surely?