Remembering Her............
Fourteen years have passed since she left. Every day, several times I recall her teachings -- the way she did things, the way she spoke and the way she conducted this whole business of managing life in a household teeming with members of all ages, requirements and temperaments along with guests walking in at all times.
Married at ten, she never got formally educated as coming to my father's house at 12 or so , she got entangled in coping with responsibilities a child-bride is ill-equipped for. Standing at 4'10" next to my six-footer father, she was a plucky little woman who often stood much higher in stature than him. In no way did she consider herself any less, whether physically or mentally. Never did she hesitate to take up any job which even literate people found difficult. She would give deep philosophical statements applicable to daily life and by being the role model she taught us that human will and spirit were far stronger than any physical or mental limitations. For every hurdle my mother would find a way to circumvent it or cross through it.
When my father got commissioned in the British army and later, the Indian Army, most officers lived with a colonial hangover. She groomed herself to be a fit companion to him. As a little child of three in Pune, I remember having an Anglo Indian ayah called Elma who taught her the niceties and mannerisms prevalent in army circles those days. An English teacher also came to teach her but after a few weeks she terminated her services, saying that she had learnt the English alphabets and to sign her name which was enough to get along in the world. She proved this in every way.
In the early fifties, when she was around thirty, my father bought some land at Clement Town , Dehra-Dun since the town was renowned for good schools and he did not want our education compromised because of the nomadic army life. She packed home and hearth into three trucks and went to live in a desolate place with acres and acres of agricultural land and orchards around the few and far apart bungalows. With a retinue of four small children, three heads of cattle, two dogs and one helper, on a cold wintry night, around midnight she landed up in a house with roofs just laid that day, no windows, doors or electricity. Our water was drawn from a muddy well dug some days after our arrival. Till then it was carried by our two 'maalis' from the wells of neighbouring bungalows, the nearest one about twenty minutes of brisk walking.
My father was posted at Merrut and not available for many months. In the meantime she got us admitted to some of the best schools in the country, bought livestock and started agriculture of premier Basmati rice along with starting an orchard by planting fruit tree saplings. For buying the best saplings she would travel to Saharanpur taking one of the gardeners along.
Nightly sojourns by jackals and snakes as frequent visitors brought out the markswoman in her as she learnt to shoot and as summer came on and no electricity, we slept outdoors, she with a rifle beside her. By the time my father got leave ,she had a well oiled household running and even managed to make some friends although bungalows were very isolated and far apart. She often reminded me of the cowboys of the Wild West...!!!
She insisted on sending us to hostels in the best schools of Dehra-Dun when my father got transferred to places like Pathankot or other backward towns. Whatever my father attained in life, materially or spiritually was because of her unwavering support and nudges at the appropriate times. She was the axis around which our lives revolved.
Talented beyond imagination, she learnt to trade in rice and reflected a remarkable business sense through which she built up quite a gold nest with which she would later pursue her desire to buy more land and build houses for rent.
Pursuing her favourite hobby of building houses ( which carried on almost to her last days in her mid eighties), she confidently managed to get everything done single handed, right from the plan and architectural details, getting the materials under her personal supervision to arranging and supervising the construction meticulously. Getting water and electricity connections must have been a tough job but she found ways to pull strings. All this during days when people travelled in tongas or rickshaws, had no phones and not much money, as salaries in the army were not much. She built almost fifteen houses and a market of many shops in our hometown, during her life time. What would schooling have added to this? If someone called a foolish person illiterate or uneducated, she would retort by saying ---education does not ensure intelligence or wisdom.
Innovative and imaginative, after retirement my parents ran an export business of garments from our village ancestral home, going on to win The President's Export Promotion Council Award for many years consecutively. Often she would travel to remote and far flung places in India to pick up materials and cloth from even the huts of weavers in Benaras or Kanchipuram. Sending excellently designed and tailored clothes to Germany and Europe, where my brother was a fashion designer, she kept abreast of the latest fashions in the West and all of us were gifted abundantly with these clothes too .
Always one to encourage children to live life to the fullest, she would often philosophise and say in Punjabi---if you don't eat mangoes in the mango season, you haven't tasted the monsoons or life. We had full freedom to carve our own paths.
Her ready wit and youthful zest for life imbued a sense of wonder at the richness of life and she instilled a sense of adventure in us as her own enthusiasm was so infectious. Her sense of humour kept her youthful and lovable. Firm but never angry or stern if she had to admonish anyone it would be brief, cool and usually one liners. And that conveyed the message. Even my very authoritative father knew when to draw the line for she was determined and resolute in her decisions although very resilient too.
As a mother there was nothing that she did not pay attention to. Her cooking skills, love for exquisite embroidery, knitting and stitching, appreciation of art( she even combined painting some portions in her embroideries), her love of good clothes and jewellery reflected excellent taste. She had groomed herself to fit any role. Her gentle ways and ladylike demeanour endeared her to everyone. She oozed love and was happiest when, we along with our families, got together at our ancestral home in Punjab, where my parents lived after retirement.
In that large' haveli 'like house we have celebrated life and the joys of belonging to each other, on the slightest pretext, for more than thirty years. A large extendable dining table for more than twenty would be laden with food of every sort as we all sat around a huge fireplace talking and singing or cracking jokes the whole night through. She was the spirit around which all activities and festivities took place.
My father and she were blessed with each other's companionship for more than seventy years. She always thought they would complete their stay on this planet together and exactly eleven months after my father's death, when we were holding prayers on his first death anniversary, she left calmly in her sleep to join him.
Few days back when I went to my parental home I felt the warmth of her love, embracing me in her fold as in years gone by. Today my sister-in-law lives alone in that rambling house but the love that our parents gave her, keeps her warmly cocooned and secure. With great gratitude towards my parents who brought me on earth, pampered and loved me like a child till the end, I looked back one more time towards the house where she had built her kingdom of love, that nurtures us still.
