November, a time when another year is almost coming to an
end, people are already making plans for the New Year, the weather is beautiful
and brings in much relief from the hot Indian summer, the leaves of a few trees
have turned into red and gold giving the entire neighborhood a romantic charm
perfect for those memorable photo shoots; a time for introspection of the year
passing by and a time for festivities and plans.
For me November is a special month, special, coz in November
is the birthday of a lady who I owe my life to....my mother.... a super
talented woman. From the time that I can remember, she has always been good at
all things ladylike, a good cook, a wonderful host, an excellent mother. When
she was young she was good at knitting, stitching, sewing, reading tons of
books, cooking yum food and doing up the home and yet be always well turned
out in spite of managing two children. As for me, never getting more than a ‘B’ grade in the craft and SUPW
classes, and a ‘C’ in drawing classes, I could never really match up to her. As
she turns sixty seven this year, I can confidently say that she still is much
better dressed than I am, I consider her a picture of elegance and grace.
So the benchmark for me was really high, and I don’t think I
could get half as close in being as efficient as her. As I was growing up, she
tried her best to teach me all the nuances that she excelled in, but I was a
poor student. The cross stitch project that she made me start in my sixth
standard was kept pending till finally she gave up trying and it was used as a
dusting cloth, the sweater that I had promised to gift my Dad on his fifty
third birthday couldn't have been possible without her knitting half of it to
help me out of this difficult assignment. As for cooking, well she did manage to
blackmail me to learn that a bit. The only thing that excited me was sewing. So
while was in college, I would get fabric and get her to cut it for me while I’d
stitch it over the weekend and I’d have a new outfit for Monday morning, sewing
was something I would do happily, but not perfectly. The first time I tried
sewing, was in school and I had landed up having passed the needle through my
finger and sat crying till she came and pulled it out of my hand, thankfully it
was the manually operated machine of the olden days, and it’s scary to think of
the outcome if I had been using a motorized machine. Not that I am a tomboy,
but somehow, during my growing up years I loved to spend more time in playing
with my pets and looking after them and reading lots of books. While she loves
meeting people and socializing, I am the completely shy kinds who prefers to be by
herself to the extent that some people misunderstand and think that I am either snooty or plain cold, quite unlike a person who has always had a job that required a lot of interaction with a whole bunch of people should be.
She had spent most of her married life in Shillong and in
the colonies where everyone knew everyone and had a lot of friends there. Post retirement,
when we moved to Delhi, my parents found it difficult to adjust initially, but
after a couple of years she bounced back and today she has a circle of friends
where she socializes often, whereas my father has found a friend in the
television, making sure that he catches the latest news bulletins at least
three times a day. Even at this age she goes for regular walks in the morning
and evening and gets worried every time the weighing scales moves a little more
than where it is supposed to sit.
I have had her as my support system all my life.
While at
work, it was a routine to pour out my day to day happenings to her and then she
would come out with completely professional advice. There were times when I would sulk and she
would tell me that I was being unprofessional in behaving like that and so on
and so forth. She would be neutral in her feedback and not support me blindly.
This is in spite the fact that she has been a housewife all her life. When I
decided to give up my job, she was the first person who kept asking me ‘Are you
sure, you want to do this?’
Well, living up to being her daughter is a difficult task
and I am yet to catch up to being anywhere close to that. So this year in
November, I decided to start something new as a way of saying 'Thanks' to my mother; As it is, these past six months off from work are now beginning to get on to me and I
really had to find something worthwhile to do while the children were away at
school. So one fine day I went out and bought a sewing machine leaving my
husband wondering as to what I was up to. My next trip to the market and I
bought some fabric, only a few to start with. My childhood experiences have
taught me well not to get super excited coz if I get bored midway of the new
assignment, all of it would go waste, the plan is to take one step at a time.
Along with the fabric came the threads and the laces. The children were really
impressed with all the new stuff and they wanted turns in using the machine, so
I had to wait till they were off to school and then I started out, the first
few cushion covers that I stitched came out okay. And so I decided to send them to her as a
‘Thank you’ coz she was the one who had first taught me to sew.
The cushions were packed neatly and handed over to the
courier and I waited for the next two days for her to call saying she had
received them.
I wanted to surprise her and also was dying to know her reaction
on seeing them. On the second day at around three in the afternoon, the phone
rang and I picked it up excitedly, I knew she had received the package. And she
started ‘Did you really make them?’ I was ecstatic, from the tone of her voice;
I knew she had liked them, but the truth was that they certainly were not up to
the mark, so I told her that I would be sending her better ones, once I
improved in making them.
So, while I find what to do next, here’s to my new
rendezvous ...........how successful it is going to be, I don’t know, but for
my Mom’s sake, I better ensure that I do well J
