SOME QUALITIES DEFINING MA.

I am a bit confused right now not knowing what title to use how for this blog. Should I call it The Reasons Why I Like My Mother (sounds odd), or What Makes Ma So Special (unsatisfactory), or Some Qualities That Define Ma? After a lot of thought I have settled for the last one.

One does not require any particular reason to love one’s mother. There are so many things about this God’s representative in human form on earth that endear her to one and all. And the mother, all over the world, has an inherent love and attachment for her child. It is natural therefore, for the child to reciprocate her love.

When it comes to my Ma, I am simply overawed like one is when one is confronted with the majestic and breathtaking view of the rising sun at Kanchenjunga, every time I am faced with the prospect of taking stock of her blessed presence in our lives. I find it quite difficult to fathom how she could mother a son like me. I have inherited none of her characteristic traits and must be even a disgrace to her.

My Ma, late Bina Devi Bhattacharyya, got married by the time she was only 13 as per the prevalent custom of the 19^th century India. Baba was 17 at that time pursuing his Master’s! Though towards the fag end of her life, Ma used to rue the fact that inspite of having hailed from a prosperous middle-class Bengali family (My maternal grandfather was a Sanskrit Scholar and Professor of a government college),  she initially found conditions in her in-laws’ place quite appalling. But she was never the complaining sort and must have adapted herself well.

She was, so I have been told, a bright student, though she could not study beyond class-6. I remember those days when sitting beside thakurma (grandmother) on her bed, one of her grandchildren would pester her, albeit teasingly, to talk about the time when Gandhi made the historic visit to her school at Chattyagram, Bangladesh. Undeterred, she would regale them with her highly enthralling narration of Gandhiji’s visit. She would seem to pick up the broken thread and continue from where she had left earlier: How impressed Gandhiji was when he made his way to the charka, the weaving machine, that Ma as a little girl had used to make the hand woven khadi cloth, something Gandhi was busy promoting and popularizing in those days of the British Raj.  She would always conclude with the regret that due to the sudden Partition of Bengal, when a large number of Hindu families had to be shifted and resettled in West Bengal, she had to leave the precious prize her school had offered her later on based on Gandhiji’s impression.

I am not sure if it was just one of those stories every grandma the world over shares with their grandchildren. But sitting close by during the entire narration, I believed each and every word while enjoying myself thoroughly.

She also possessed an enviable memory. Even a few weeks before her demise due to multiple-organ failure, I heard her reciting Mrs. J. C. Carney’s poem, word by word in her distinctive voice:

Little drops of water / Little grains of sand,

Make the mighty ocean/ and the beauteous land.

In comparison, I find myself very absent-minded and forgetful. After joining the RCSC (Royal Civil Service Commission of Bhutan), on a number of occasions, when I was back home during the winter holidays, I would start raising hell, not being able to trace one of my shirts or books or whatever. Standing in the middle of her room, concerned yet unrattled, she would direct me to look inside my suitcase under the bed. And on opening it, low and behold, I would find the missing thing there exactly the way I had it staked and left just before my departure for Bhutan, some5/6 months earlier!

Though Ma came from a prosperous Brahmin family, she had no qualms about adjusting to the struggling financial environment of her in-laws’ place. Nor was she a religious fanatic. Qualities that stood her in good stead later on when Baba, busy fighting a 17-year long lasing case against the Government of West Bengal, got confined to the easy-chair by a cruel stroke of fate due to a severe spread of gangrene on his left leg and the family was in all sorts of financial doldrums. On numerous occasions, while accompanying her to places of pilgrimage, scattered all over India, I learnt about religious tolerance by observing her from close quarters. At Kashi, in Banaras in the northern part of India, on our way back to Bharat Sevashram Sangha after a long day at the temple, I felt thirsty and wanted to have a cup of tea from the roadside stall. Many other pilgrims would not dare to drink from those grim-faced chaiwallas. But when I offered a cup to my Ma, she drank from the cup as if it contained nectar, least bothered about the sanctity of the place or the race of the person who made it!

I have also seen her eating the food cooked a day or two earlier, uncomplainingly. She would take the cockroach-eaten biscuits or other eatables unflinchingly in the belief that nothing would happen to her. And nothing ever did! And she lived till the ripe old age of 90! She was in the prime of her health and disease-free but for the last few weeks of her life! AMAZING! I have always been very choosy about the food I take. My relatives would remember the tantrums I used to throw every time there was a hair in my plate. I would push the plate away, untouched.  And strange as it may sound, I was twice down with a severe bout of jaundice by my early 20s!

Ma never would powder her face or apply make-ups (I think raising such a big family like ours kept her always occupied and she had no time whatsoever,  in between the little time she had for the preparation of the meals, to think of her personal health and looks). Yet she had the most glowing skin I have ever seen on anyone on two legs! Besides, all those items of make-up cost money. She, I reckon, knew it better to spend whatever little money she could save on her children’s upbringing rather than beautifying herself!

Till date she remains the most graceful lady in my eyes. It had more to do with her simple, humble persona than her physical appearance. She was honest to a T, kind and loving. Very passionate and protective of her children. And the sacrificing type all through. I have heard stories of her sacrificing mentality, when about to help herself to a late lunch; she would notice a distant relative turning up. She would, unfailingly and unhesitatingly, offer her share to the atithi debo bhava (Your guest is your God), without the notice or knowledge of the person concerned.

A great lady, I must say. In my next, I would like to blog about what, in my humble opinion, characterizes my Ma best,   something which is invariably lacking in almost all her children without exception, which is, her Quality of Forgiveness.