Maa

I was not sure if I would ever be able to muster enough strength to write a testimonial to you. I say that this is a testimonial and not an obituary though I know (and I am still trying to come to terms with reality) that it has been exactly a year since you left me. It was one year ago on this same day, October 18, 2014 that you gave me the shocker of my life. This is a testimonial about you and I will talk about you. You have been my dearest friend, my mentor, my support, my teacher, my sibling, my confidant, my child, for a great part of my life you have also been my dad from the time I lost him and most importantly, you have been my ‘Maa’.

I know that for any child his parents are his first hero’s. For everyone their dad is the personification of a strong hero and for everyone their mom is the personification of love. It is no different for me, just that I lost dad when I was still in school and you played the role of both my dad and Maa. That is what makes you so special. I am not sure where to start if I have to write about you. Look through my eyes and you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You were not too tall; you were just a wee bit short of five and a half feet. But you had the best nose, wide forehead, great eyes, nice lips, perfect jaw line and teeth; and above all, the sweetest and innocent of smiles. What do I tell about your long hair! Your hair was longer than your height. So much so that just to comb the tips of your hair you had to sit, fold a bit of your hair and only then could you reach to the tips of your hair. You never partitioned your hair. I remember until dad was there you used to comb your hair nicely and decorate your hair with long and unwinding jasmines – your most favorite flowers. You were a natural beauty. I know that I look like a photo copy of my dad but I also know that I am fortunate that I got lips like yours.

You were named Satyavathi – a personification of truth. Your dad named you Satyavathi because you were born when he was penning ‘Bhaama kalaapam’ (the story of Satyabhama, the first wife of Lord Krishna). You were the eighth and last of your siblings. You had four elder brothers and three elder sisters. Your dad seemed to have a special inclination towards his daughters. He chose the names of his daughters more wisely. May be it was the teacher and the writer in him that prompted him to name his daughters on the lines of a Sanskrit hymn. He named his daughters – Saraswathi, Bhagawathi, Bharathi and then, Satyavathi. But I also know that being the last daughter of a middle class teacher in a remote village ‘Rama Nagaram’, an ‘agraharam’ in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, you were not born with a silver spoon. You had to struggle. And struggle you did, all through your life and that too with a smile. You lost your dad when you were not even in high school. After you lost your dad, your mom and you were played around from one brother’s house to another brother’s house on a ‘need’ basis. If your first brother had a child, then your mom and you were the nannies and care takers. Once the other brother’s wife was carrying, you both had got the ‘transfer’ orders. None of your brothers bothered about getting you married. Your sisters were lucky in that aspect – they were married by the time your dad passed away. And when you were 25, your mom got small pox and she passed away. I remember you used to tell me that none of your sisters-in-law even came near your mom’s body or touched it for the fear of contracting the small pox. You were the one who took care of your mom when she was down with pox and later helped the body cremated. You were very rational thinking and very brave.

Things got worse after your mom’s demise. Now there was no one to even care for you. You were the ‘free labor’, the toy to kick around from one brother to another. And as a part of that ‘football’ game, you ended up in Hyderabad where your last brother lived. He had a daughter recently and he called you because he needed a free nanny. Your brother was a ‘surveyor’. He came to Hyderabad and used to take up land surveys for farmers and businessmen in and around Hyderabad. One of his clients, who later became close friends with your brother, was dad. Dad and your brother started off with a business relationship because dad was a farmer and had lands in Kothapet and also dad was into real estate business. But as they started working closely, dad and your brother became friends and dad has even let out his home at Saidabad to your brother. That is where dad and you met, got to know each other, and eventually fell in love. To get married was not a cake walk though. The moment he got to know about it, your brother disapproved of it. How can you marry a relatively less educated (dad was just a matriculate whereas all of your siblings were M.A.’s and two of your brothers were surveyors and two were teachers) and a ‘non brahmin’ guy who was not from Andhra? I still remember the way you used to narrate me the happenings of that time. Dad and you went and even got married in Tirupati. When you came back from Tirupati and broke the news to your brother, he asked you to remove off the ‘taali’ and forget dad. You being the tough one and one who speaks her mind no matter what, retorted and asked if your brother’s wife will be ready to take off her taali! Your brother slapped you for being adamant and insisting on marrying dad. He asked you to stop this love or get out of the house. Then again the no nonsense strong woman in you replied with ‘you are staying in my husband’s house (your brother was dad’s tenant). If someone has to leave, it definitely is not me. I am in my husband’s house’. That’s it! He left that house and I know you never saw his face until he died a couple of years back. You never took his name. You knew that your brother was wrong and you never minced your words. That was the strong person you were. You always taught me to believe in plain speak and to always be forthright. You always used to say ‘Antya nishturam kanna, aadi nishturam melu’ (it is good that people dislike you right away than to be sweet with them initially and later they dislike you). You always believed in calling a spade a spade. I know people who know me, who have seen me, who have interacted with me say that I am too forthright and I show people the mirror and am very blunt. I am like that, may be! But I do believe in speaking my mind and do not believe in trying to be sweet all the time.  I am proud that I got some of it from you. I know that because of this trait I could not make a lot of friends. I could not progress a lot in career. But, I also know that whoever could see beyond the façade and saw that what I do is just calling a spade a spade have become the best of friends for life. Though I would not belittle my dad, you were definitely too revolutionary for your times. There are things that I fear even till date but you never did. You respected the society in which we live but you were never, not even for a single moment, were scared of the acceptance or rejection from the society. You always went by your conscience and left the decision of the society to society itself.

I know you were a perfectionist to an extent at the same time you were way too practical in life. May be I should work towards becoming at least half as practical as you ever were. I know I have a very good hand writing in Telugu and Hindi along with English and you are the main reason behind all of those. I know the kindergarten days when you used to sit along with me and get my homework done. I still remember those raps on my knuckles, those books over books of ‘double rule’ pages which you made me write so that I get that perfect handwriting. I know I was made to read the ‘chinna baala shiskha’ and ‘pedda baala shiksha’ so that I get all the Telugu that I would ever need. I cannot thank you enough for the Telugu you taught me. I always have told you that I need you to teach Telugu to my kids too, but, as fate had other plans, it never could be. But I promise you that just as you taught me, I will ensure that the teachings about the names of Telugu days, months, years, seasons, etc. will not fade away. Till date whenever I see a Telugu crossword, I sit and complete it or at least attempt it. I cherish those days when you and I used to sit and I used to finish whatever I could and then seek your guidance and help in completing that cross word that comes in the newspapers and magazines. It is only and only because of you that I know any bit of Telugu or Hindi.

You have always been the giver. I know dad had a very large circle of friends and people used to drop in anytime of the day or night. You were the perfect host. Always! I know people still talk about the patience, the culinary skills, and the ever smiling host that you were. My patience is also something that I attribute to you along with my silence. While you are (and I am) known for speaking the mind out, you are also known for your silence. You always had the knowledge to know when to speak up and speak out and speak objectively and when to remain silent – even when that silence was painful for you.  You believed that the truth comes out by itself.

True to being a daughter of a Telugu pandit, you had a great grasp on Telugu literature. The best example of your grasp on that language is my name. I remember you told me more than once on the reason for naming me ‘Sridhar’. You came from a ‘vishnavaite’ background. Dad was from a ‘shivite’ background, though I know that neither of you were blind followers. Sri Venkateshwara of Tirupati was your favorite God. You always felt that I was born as His blessing. You wanted to make sure that my name blends both the Vishnava and Shiva sects of Hinduism. Also, it had to remind you of Balaji. Added to that, the doctor who operated upon you and helped give birth to me was Late Dr. Jayshree Kirloskar. You wanted to thank her in my name. I am pretty sure you gave a thorough thought on this. Then you came up with ‘SRIDHAR’. The word Sridhar comes from ‘Sri’ and ‘dhar’. Sri has two prominent meanings – one meant wealth and the other meant poison. The second part ‘dhar’ means ‘the one that bears’. So, if one takes the meaning of ‘Sri’ as wealth, then my name becomes – the one who bears wealth (Laxmi) and thus Sri Venkateshwara/ Vishnu. If one takes the meaning of ‘Sri’ as poison, then my name becomes – the one who bears poison and thus it is Shiva. My name thus becomes both Shivaite and Vishnavaite streams. And the icing on the cake is the word ‘Sri’ is a part of the doctor’s name. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I say that not many parents think this deep before naming their little ones. But you are you and you sure did.

You had the inquisitiveness of a 3 year old child in you. You always had the hunger to learn new things. You used to read newspapers daily – three of them. You never liked watching the TV and used to rightly say that a TV is an idiot box and for knowing things one needs to read newspapers. Though I do watch TV once a while, I have been taught by you to read newspaper daily. You were from the Independence generation but you were well versed with the Google’s of the IT world and any latest thing. You were so young at heart that my friends used to compliment me that if I left my friends with you in the room, you made sure that they were comfortable and you talked to them on things that they liked. Be it when I was in school, when I went to college, when I was graduating, or even when I joined work. It is a very tough thing to understand another person and talk their language. You were a master at that.

I need to clarify that you were never a blind believer of faith. You were a Hindu. You believed in the existence of God. But you, just like dad, never followed anything ‘blindly’. And that for your times is more than revolutionary. In a country where some believers (and most of your siblings) do not eat garlic, you told me that you cooked curries with garlic in them and ate. Your logic being that garlic is good for health. I know people put a strand of grass on every edible item on the day of an eclipse (be it solar or lunar) as a belief that there is a serpent that eats the sun or the moon during the eclipse and this strand of grass will slit the serpent and thus help the food from getting ‘poisoned’. You used to laugh at that logic that people give. You never believed that and in fact you used to make fun of people who followed that belief. May be I got my religious inclinations with the logic embedded in it from you and dad. My friends ask me if I believe in God and if I go to temples and my answer is that I believe in someone above and I know that I am a Hindu but I don’t need to go to a temple to find God.

You have been very brave. You used to stay in a house which had a graveyard just beside it. When people used to ask if you never used to get scared, your answer always used to be that you were never scared but if you saw any ‘ghosts’ you don’t mind saying ‘Hi’ to the ‘neighbor’. You came to Hyderabad during the ‘Jai Telangana’ and ‘Jai Andhra’ movements. You always put a ‘tilak’ that only ladies from Andhra used to put. People warned you that it was not safe to wear that kind of long tilak in Hyderabad. You never changed yourself for the society. You said that you saw goons on the streets but you were never scared. You continued your trademark style. I guess I got a small proportion of it from you, but, I wish I had gotten more of it – I value society a bit more than you used to and may be acted some based on the society. If it were you in my place, I am pretty sure you never would have done that. That makes me proud of you and makes me think of emulating it. I hope I do emulate you on that front one day.

You always valued friends over relatives. That is something dad also had. And I am proud that I went on you both on that front. That does in no way mean that you disliked your relatives, but, your friendships were strong, stronger than any relatives. And your friendships were based on matching of wavelengths, of understanding each other and on being in tune with your friends. I know recently you met with your childhood friend. The day you both came face to face with each other after ages was priceless. I am fortunate to have been a witness to that. That day I was very happy for your friendship. Tears rolled from both you and your friend’s eyes when you met and hugged each other. It was after a gap of more than 50 years that you met her just months before you left. For your times it was uncommon to make friendships with people from other religions. You had one of your closest friends who were a Muslim. Your friends used to feel comfortable in your company and were proud of your friendship. I will be really happy the day my friends feel the same about me.

Your love for me had no boundaries. Your life started with me and ended in me. After dad passed away, you wrote in a book, and later told that your heart had two parts and one of it died the day dad passed away. You lived only for me – your ‘Sri babu’, the other part of your heart that was still beating. I know I have been fortunate to be with you for the largest chunk of your life – more than the duration you yourself spent with your parents, more than the duration you spent with dad. But the greedy me feels that it is not enough. When you left me exactly one year back, people tried consoling me that you were tired and that it was time for you to go; that you went to a better place; that you needed some rest and wanted to spend time with dad. But my heart is unable to buy that, even today. I still search for you everywhere, I long to hear your caring but strong voice, I want to feel your hand on my head. I know I cannot fight my fate, I know I cannot change His decision; I know I cannot reverse time. But, I know mom, that I will meet you, I will see dad and you, I will still make you run around just to eat my food, I will always keep saying that I am my dad’s son just to check if it made you feel any jealous, I will sleep in between dad and you, I will insist on sitting in the front of the car, I will still ask you for the best dishes which you will cook and the best things in the whole world that you will get me with a smile. I shall, one day...

It has been the longest one year that I lived. I know I need to gather the shattered pieces of me, buck up, and, just like you, I need to face the world – on my own terms.

Miss you Maa, you are the best mom in the whole wide world!