Her wide eyes filled with love and serenity, her dark brown colour skin glowing, her sweet lips humming beautiful songs and her warm kiss on my forehead wishing me a good day at school. My mother.
Funny thing is that I used to think of my mother as an irritating person who drove me crazy by giving me lectures on what to do and what not to do. I scored good marks in all my subjects, took part in competitions and won a lot of prizes. But the fact that I was irresponsible in other ways annoyed my mother. From morning to night, like a walking radio, she told me what to do and how not to be dependent on her.
I never listened to her and became more and more dependent on her. Sometimes we had heated arguments. But my carefree life was soon brought to a stop when my mother had to fly home to nurse my grandmother whose health condition was getting worse. Suddenly it dawned on me that I had to spend a whole week alone looking after myself. The night before her trip my mother lay awake all night, worrying about leaving me behind to manage all house chores. I slept well dreaming about the freedom I could acquire but little did I know that I was going to have a week full of nightmares.
The nightmares hit hard. I missed two classes at school by getting up late. I burned my fingers many times while cooking. My study room looked more like a junkyard with huge bundles of books and untidy papers scattered everywhere. My hands became rough from cleaning. The only thing that satisfied me was that I lost my weight.
I didn’t mention any of my worries to my mom on the phone knowing that she would cry, and that would have been unbearable to me. By the end of the week I resolved to change. I learned to cook my mother’s recipes by watching cooking shows, I learned to be more responsible and the most important of all I realized the sacrifice my mother made every day to take care of me.
I like to think that Manisha Version 2 was born of this situation. Thankfully I am now more responsible and have learned to become more dependent on my self. And on the day of my mother’s arrival I hired a taxi and bought a bunch of pink roses and a card – all with my pocket money. I headed towards the airport and when I spotted the familiar face with wide eyes looking at me I broke down. The next moment all the by standers were looking at an emotional mother-daughter scene.
I remembered the famous words of Honoré de Balzac: ‘The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness’. At that moment in the airport, I knew she was ready to forgive me.
BY MANISHA R MANIKUTTAN
