reminiscing.life.somewhere 

Vol 1

Sambhav saree

I lived as a paying guest during my first year of college in Delhi. It was a small room on the terrace of a house and I shared it with a roommate who was elder than me. My mother was visiting me and she was living with us in the same room. On the morning of the day she arrived she went to attend a funeral, someone we knew had passed away. After the first half of the day she returned to us for lunch and post lunch she took a nap. In the evening there was a wedding which my mother was supposed to go to. She got up in the early evening, had a cup of tea, and was about to leave for the wedding when my then-roommate asked my mother about her changing into a different saree for the wedding. To this, my mother's reply was: Beta, hum sambhav se rehte hai, na ghum me zyada ghum; na Khushi me zyada Khushi (I am a person who has the same outlook on both sadness and joy). She walked out of the house in the same saree in which she had started her day. We fondly grew to call it her "sambhav" (same emotion) attire.

Murdo se kya Darna

We I was about 15 we lost my cousin grandfather. He had no kids of his own and when he was no more my parents bought his deceased body to our house. It was late at night, and my father was standing outside the house weeping while my Mother did all the preparations on the body to keep it going till we had other arrangements and relatives come over. While she was at it, she took a break and went upstairs to her room to tend to something leaving me alone with his body downstairs. I, being young, got extremely disturbed sitting there so I ran up to her and told her about it. I expressed my feelings and informed her that I was not okay being downstairs alone and wanted her to be there as well. Listening to this my mother's immediate reaction was "Beta, murdo se kya Darna, insaano se daro" (Child, what's the point of being scared by a dead body, it is the alive humans you should be more scared of)

Uske Ma baap ne nahi sikhaya

My mother used to pick us up from school daily and then we'd drive to my brother's school to receive him. Once on our way back, we met with an accident. There was a boy who was driving a scooter and he suddenly appeared in front of our car. My Mother immediately asked our driver to stop the car and got off and gave the boy two tight slaps, and as life would have had it he was a senior to my bother at his school. Obviously, he was very embarrassed and he immediately ducked and hid. Once he was at safe distance from this incident, he asked my mother why she did such a thing. This was her reply: "Uske Ma Baap ne usko nahi sikhaya, hum hi sikha denge" (His parents didn't teach him a lesson, I should do that on their behalf).

Hum kya bole, humari beti khud moti hai

I was living in Chennai for almost two years of my life, and sometime during that duration, my mother was visiting me. I lived with two more girls at that point in time. A family friend of mine was due to get married and my mother brought up the wedding in front of one of my roommates. She then went on to share photos of the bride and remarked on how she was overweight. Post that her immediate reaction was: "Hum kon hote hai bolne wale, humari khud ki beti aisi hai to" (Who am I to comment on someone when my daughter is also fat."

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