N&N - Our Mother

Aug 28, 2022
4 min read

Updated: Feb 1, 2023

तू कितनी अच्ची है, तू कितनी भोली है, प्यारी प्यारी है,ओ माँ, ओ माँ।

You are so nice, you are so innocent, you are lovely, Oh mother, oh mother

यह जो दुनिया है, वन है कांटो का, तू फुलवारी है, ओ माँ, ओ माँ॥

This world is a forest of thorns, you are a flowerbed, Oh mother, oh mother

These are the lines from an age-old Indian Bollywood movie “Raja Aur Runk” released in 1968, which comes to my mind every time I picturize our mom.

By saying “Our Mom”, I refer to Nitin’s biological mother. More than the law, she is my mother by the heart. Coincidentally, we have so many similarities in personality and looks, that strangers easily confuse us for mother and daughter in real. Hence, I tease Nitin that he is adopted into this family and am the biological child who was lost earlier; to which Nitin responds - You married me cause you and mom were destined to meet.

The saying is - The mother is the best teacher of a child!

What better coincidence than the fact that mom's birthday falls on Teacher’s Day September 5th and through this blog, I want to extend my regards and love for her.

I learnt many valuable life lessons from mom in the last year since my wedding with Nitin. Her personality of being content, ever smiling, non-invasive, kind, caring, understanding, and fiercely independent; are only a few from the long list that I can quote here. She is intelligent, transparent, assertive, down-to-earth, and hardworking. Her biggest quality is, that she treats all her children as peers than some support for old age. She is humorous, witty, and beautiful in every sense. Her eagerness to learn anything and everything from others shows that she is free from any ego. She is the only elderly, with whom I can have any kind of conversation without hesitation or fear. She is non-judgmental and never gossips about anybody.

My interaction with mom was brief before our wedding and I happened to see her for the first time, during our trip to Indrapuram. It was through the daily phone conversations later, that we slowly got to know each other. During two weeks trip to Indrapuram again on December 21, I truly connected with her.

We share our thoughts, ideas, recipes, and life experiences with each other. It is one call that I look forward to daily. It is a miracle that I have her in my life, along with a supportive spouse. Unfortunately, I could not see Nitin’s father; who passed away in 2018. However, his parents have that strong bond that I get to know about him, through mom. At all times, she is full of praise for her relationship with dad and her in-laws. This has indirectly strengthened my and Nitin's bonding as a couple too.

A major hidden talent of mom is, she is great at cracking KBC questions, which even the participants fail to answer taking lifeline. While I shamelessly try to google the answer, mom would have confidently answered in under 30 seconds already. I have been insisting her to participate in next KBC season without fail.

Mom as well possesses rare culinary skills like peeling muskmelon seeds, and preparing a special salt mix that literally enhances the taste of any savoury dish. Nothing beats the perfectly cooked phulka by her skilled hands and many north-Indian delicacies like Kadhi pakoda, sarson ka saag, besan ke ladoo, to name a few. At the same time, she is quite flexible in her eating habits and equally enjoys some recipes prepared by me like Rasgulla, Odia style fish curry, karele ki subji, haryali chicken biryani etc. I love to wear few of her outfits and she styles in my sunglasses as well. Her oil head massage is something I can never say no to. She loves to play mobile games like sudoku and solitaire and watches Indian soap operas (thankfully just for entertainment!). She loves pineapple flavour, may it be fresh juice or cake and her personality is like of a pineapple as well. “Stand tall, wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside.”

Am amazed how she truly lives life without any regrets and wishes well to everyone including the ones, who has hurt her the most or taken away her possessions. She is like that vast ocean, who believes only in being a giver. She is non-materialistic and leads a simple lean life. Her kind words like “Whatever happens will happen for good”, “Nobody can steal our destiny from us”, gives a lot of courage to me most times. She silently and skilfully performs household, outside and many other tasks all by herself. She is the only one who remembers at least 50+ birthdays, anniversaries, etc. in the extended family on both sides.

I love to snuggle in her lap and listen to the lovely old stories from her past, plan the menu, enjoy some hot momos in the evening, walk on the terrace, and many such activities. We keep planning about our future of opening a home-based food business some day, and travel together.

I wish her many more upcoming years of life full of love, happiness, and laughter. May she always smile like this and spread warm love to everyone.

Thank you, Mom, for being there with us, always!

Happy Birthday and we love you so much.

(Indrapuram visit in Dec2021)