It’s that time of the year again. Durga Puja is approaching
and being a true-blood Bengali, I am all geared up for it. Some folks do not
like to be in Kolkata during the Pujas as they want to avoid the crowds. I, on
the other hand, love to be in Kolkata during the festival and watch it transform
into a mega carnival. Even if I do not go out, the sights, sounds and smells of
Durga Puja give me an immense high.
This time, along with the excited feeling, I am also a
little sad. This is the first Puja without my mother. In the last few years,
she was not well but the fact that she was there was enough. She would not go
anywhere, but I would switch on the TV for her and get her to watch Puja
Parikrama on one of the Bengali channels. During Durga Puja we worship Goddess
Durga, who symbolizes woman power. So I thought this would be the right time to
write about my mother, who was a powerful woman in her own right.
My mother grew up in a highly pampered atmosphere. Her
father was a top official in the Burma government and she lacked for nothing.
When she married my father and tried to live with his family, she found it
difficult to adjust in a large family where there was no privacy or space. She
could not stay there for long and soon my parents moved out. Objectively
speaking, she might not have been a great daughter-in-law, though I know that
she felt guilty about it and spent most of her life trying to make up for not having stayed with her in-laws. She was
however, a fantastic mother. I came along nine years after my parents’
marriage. She had had a son before me who died the day he was born. So I was
doubly precious to her.
From the moment I was born, Ma focused on bringing me up and
bringing me up well. She argued with my father and put me in a convent, as she
firmly believed in the value of convent education. She encouraged me to read
English books so that I learnt English properly. I started going to a library
from the age of six. As the years went on, she also ensured that I learnt
dance, drawing and playing the piano. When she realized that my true interest
lay in dance, she spared nothing in her quest to make me a dancer. I still
remember the day she sold her gold mangalsutra to buy me my dance jewelry. That
is just one instance. She sacrificed a lot for me in a myriad number of ways. When
my father died, she sold jewelry and furniture, begged and borrowed from
relatives to make sure that I complete my education. As I started working, and
travelling abroad, she never once told me that she could not stay alone and
always said yes, when I asked her if it was ok with her if I went away for some
months.
In 2009, she was diagnosed with vascular dementia, wherein
she started having major memory problems and hallucinations. It was extremely
painful for me to watch such a dynamic and outgoing woman forget who her daughter
was. In the five years after she was diagnosed, she had her good days when she
would be lucid and remember me, and her bad days when she went into her own
past and forgot the present. When I got married in 2014, I was afraid that she
and Rudra would not get along. Ma had always been very possessive about me and
disliked most of my friends because they took me away from her. Initially, she
took a little time to get comfortable with him, but soon they developed a
rapport that was very touching to see. I must say that she was immensely lucky
to get a son-in-law who left his own home and came to stay with us to take care
of her. And take care of her, he did! He kept a strict watch on the food that
the attendants served her and would carry her to the bathroom for her bath
every morning. When she passed away in November, I feel that she was at peace
that her daughter was in good hands. I miss her every day and often when I eat
something that she liked to eat, or watch a movie that I watched with her, it
is as if I feel that she is right there with me.
Ma, you were a wonderful person and a fabulous
mother! I will count myself lucky if I can be half the woman you were. Love
you!