A Mother's Sacrifice - Story That Grew Up With Me...

 

I love listening to stories. No academic degree or professional course can teach you as much as a good story if you ask me. At this phase of life, when I look toward my long-gone past, I remember so many good stories told to me at various stages, and at various unimaginable places. I remember so many of them by heart. But I hardly remember any lecture with that amount of lucidity I attended in college.

Being an imaginative kid, who was considered lost by many around me, I always valued stories. It was and still is a desirable dish for my imaginative mind. Do you know that so many people are researching time travel and the presence of different dimensions? Little do they know that the only way to travel in time and explore different dimensions is possible by telling and listening to good stories.

Do you want to try it?

So sit back and relax. And take a bellyful of breath.

Let me take you to my classroom. In a shady corner on the top floor, just next to the staircase, there's my classroom. It's the last period of the day. It was much hotter than the other days of July month. The least we could do is to relax for a bit after a tiring day.

It was a counseling period. I really looked forward to that period as one can gossip with his or her friends and can stay away from textbooks and notes for a while. It took me years to understand that it was not the vacant time of the day but the stories Counselor Ma'am (may God bless her divine soul) used to tell us that made me look forward to that class.

She entered our classroom and we all stood up to sing our lullaby style Good Afternoon Ma'am. She smiled and told us to settle down. One could tell her with her facial expressions that whether she is in the mood to tell a story or she wants us to carry on with whatever we feel like, of course by maintaining the decorum of the class. That day her expressions displayed the former option. She was clenching her kerchief in her left hand. She stood comfortably against her desk and started the story -

Once there was a saint who used to travel from one place to another, singing devotional songs, and answering innocent questions asked by people around him. He was known for throwing light on unanswered questions which appear in his disciples' minds. 

On the banks of the Godavari River, there was a village. The saint thought of staying in that village under a gigantic banyan tree, before continuing his journey to other places. 

The villagers were delighted and honored by the presence of the saint. They brought fruits, milk, clean water, and various fragrances for him. They sat all around him, listening to devotional songs, praising the greatness of the Almighty. 

After the kirtan session, people asked for solutions to their domestic as well as spiritual problems. When everyone was contented with his simple solutions, everyone stood up to leave. But then one villager raised a question. 

'Oh wise one, I'm a hardworking man. I travel to distant lands to earn money so that I can give all the amenities to my children. I compromise my personal pleasures so that my children can lead a good life. But Your Holiness, if you pick up any religious text, they all sing praises of the divinity and the compromises of the Mother. Can you please put some light on why Mother is expressed as more compromising to the Father in all those texts?

The saint smiled and calmly appreciate the importance of the question raised. He told the villager to come back again the next morning after taking a bath. Then he will answer his question.

When the villager arrived the next morning, the saint was sitting calmly under the tree. 

He told the villager not to sit and raise his arms where he was standing. Then he tied a big rock through a jute rope around the villager's belly. He was not at all expecting something like this. He doubted the wisdom of the saint and thought that he wants to play some kind of prank with him. 

He only understood the seriousness of the business once the saint recited some Vedic chants.

The saint told the villager to go back to his home and come back tomorrow. "And don't even think of untying the rope or getting rid of the rock in any way.  It will bring you bad luck not only for this birth but for the next three births too" the saint said when he turned back.

The villager said nothing. He struggled to reach his home, dragging the stone with force as well as with utmost care. 

The next day when the villager returned he saw the saint in a deep meditative saint. The villager was panting heavily, drenched in sweat. He sat near the tree where the saint was sitting. When the saint opened his eyes, the village was just too eager to ask for the answer to his question. But the saint stopped him and told him to come back again the next morning.

With a heavy heart and a heavier belly, he went back to his home.

The next morning again the villager came back, slowly dragging his stone. He sat next to the saint this time. He tried to look for his answer, but the saint stopped him again and told him to come back again the next morning. 

Being said that the villager was all fierce and uncontrollable. He stood up and started abusing and screaming at the saint.

" Do hell with your answer, you old, grey-hair langoor. Just set me free with this rope and your stupid rock".

The saint smiled and untied the rope, relieving him after so many hours. 

"My brother, you couldn't bear the weight of this rock for mere forty-eight hours. And your Mother didn't complain, rather celebrated your weight around her belly for so many months. She spent so many sleepless nights because you were growing slowly in her belly. The greatness of a Mother and the compromises she made can't be described in mere words my friend. No scripture is capable enough to describe the greatness of a Mother." The saint replied. 

The villager was awestruck with the answer. He fell immediately at the steps of the saint, asking for forgiveness.

When the counselor ma'am ended the story, I can't forget what she said next. 

'To all the boys who are here in the class, one day you will become amazing Fathers. But a Mother's compromises really can't be described in words.'

And the story stayed with me since that day. Unfortunately, Counselor Ma'am left this world on the last day of the year 2022. When I heard that news, more than feeling sad or angry, I felt cheated.

I felt cheated because no one I've ever come across is so humble, so caring, so giving. 

I felt cheated because our younger generation can never listen to those stories, which had the capability to change one's life.

I felt cheated because I will not be able to see that face ever again in whatever days of mortality are still left with me.

I have dealt with physical pains quite gracefully in my life. But emotional pains, I really doubt my capabilities in handling them.

I wanted to share this story with every one of you on the occasion of Mother's Day.

It's hard to send wishes to the divine land where Counselor Ma'am has got a golden desk to stand against and tell wonderful stories. But I'm taught with utmost care to at least try.

Happy Mother's Day Sangeeta Ma'am...

Clumsy Handwriting And Other Sins...

Like a big, fat book, one's life is divided into various chapters. Things might look slow, clumsy, and hard on day to day basis. But if you sit down one day, clear the specks of dust from your mental lens, and look back - You can divide your days into various periods - more like an episodal web series.

Some of you might divide them into school days or college days, Initial employment days, or the typical ' Working in this organization sucks' days. Maybe Infatuation days and major crush days. Dating days and Break-up days. Some of you might be too busy to sit like me doing nothing but thinking about the past. So, you might have divided it into typical good days and bad days.

Nothing wrong with that.

And then there are some rare species (ahem! Guess who belongs to that species?) who have all the time to go as narrow as possible - Categorising each and everything which they could think of. And then categorizing them into other categories. For them each and every detail is important. They like their chapters short and readable - No matter how thick the book will be

No point for guessing, I'm one of them (If by chance, you missed my brackets hint).

To explain a bit about the brain of this rare species - For you, it might be 'just' school days. For them, it is:-

- The way I cried when my parents forcefully sent me to school.

- The last guy entered before the main gut closed.

- The one who slept in history class.

- No more stupid pencils - get me the pen.

and the list of chapters can go on and on.

In everyone's life, there comes a phase when one can literally throw away those 'wildly' chewed-from-the-back pencils and replace them with sleek and elegant pens. That's actually a remarkable change as now you can fill your notebooks all black and blue (ahem! literally again). 

Remember - questions in black ink and answers in blue.

That's actually a superpower. All of a sudden, you feel that whatever you are going to write will not be much transitory now - It will be carrying some amount of permanency with it.

This phase also carries an opportunity with it - an opportunity to forge a personality where you can 'Choose' to write neatly. An opportunity to commit fewer mistakes. An opportunity to behave like a person who has a 'way' with pens.

You know what, these all are quite foolish opportunities. It's like a fish not only climbing a tree but also singing an opera from above.

I had clumsy handwriting. No one taught me to write clumsy - I was born with that talent. My brain always worked hard to guide my hand to fit as many words as possible in as less space. And to cope with dictating speed of the teacher, I never felt any issue with skipping a few words. I believed in writing the first letter of the word and making an impression afterward. And after class, I used to sit with a group of friends to guess what actually was my intent to write there. Can you imagine a group of historians, looking interestingly at the Harrapan script, trying to write a new book on the Aryan Invasion Theory?

I was born in an era (I consciously used the word era) where people used to think that one's handwriting is so damn directly proportional to one's intelligence. And My dear Father was most concerned with the neatness of my handwriting 'oblique' level of my intelligence. So he enrolled me in this handwriting improvement class. Point to be noted - I was in the tenth standard when he took this revolutionary step. And the average age of the students who were taking that course was eleven (ahem! If you count me in).

They started with the clarity and formation of the alphabet - trying to modify my outstanding handwriting into a predefined 'greeting card' style. It was fun actually making the letter "A" like two wooden ladders balanced against each other and fancy ribbon tied between them. And the letter "B"  was like that standard sketch I used to make, in which two hills with a waterfall kind of thing were there in between. You just have to see that sketch in portrait mode. 

I finally gained that superpower of showcasing my classy handwriting - and that too with a lightning speed of forty minutes...

a quarter of a page of an exercise notebook.

Don't forget that they assured me that with regular practice, I'll be able to cope. But after trying and trying, I understood that every power requires a certain amount of compromises. I have to choose between beauty and the beast (oops! speed). I chose the beast. And in a couple of weeks, I was back with my scribble and scratches. 

But my Father was not ready to spare me so easily.

He made me repeat that whole program in the twelfth standard. 

Imagine a five-foot-nine guy, weighing hundred and forty pounds (you can't ignore my sixteen-inch arms, can you ?), surrounded by a few irritating ten-year-old kids, fighting to grab the first desk. And yes, I learned cursive writing there. 

And the teacher had to deal with the class in a different way.

- I'll make you sit with a girl

- Finger on your lips

- write ' I will not talk in the class' in your diary a hundred times.

I remember once I was writing an essay in my recalled superpower when I forgot to put a couple of dots above the Seducing 'I' and the gentle 'J'.

'Himanshu, next time if you forget this I'll give you a tight slap. I didn't know how to react, so obviously... I couldn't control my laughter. 

To my amazement, she started laughing too.

That was my last day in that kiddy class. 

Now here I'm where people believe in typing and chatting. But I still do most of my writing on paper with a fountain pen or a pilot pen majorly. People do rely on e-mails, but I still send letters to a couple of my acquaintances.

And my handwriting is much tidy and clear.

I learned a very important lesson as I grew up. Handwriting is a medium to express your soul. It is much clear when your thoughts flow like a fresh stream of water.

I recently read an article in a magazine that you can't actually improve your handwriting. No matter how hard you try, you can't hide what's imbibed in you for a long time. Also, your handwriting is very much dependent on your mental state and speed. Most of the time, your hand fails to cope with your mental speed.  Result - everyone says - 'Can you read yourself what you have written?'.

I tried to explain this to my Father. He just smiled. 

I don't know whether my mental speed is reduced or my hand is now capable to tame the monster in my head, but my handwriting is improved. At least I believe this.

Do you want to see it? send me your address and wait for a letter exclusively for you. Let me pray to the Gods of wit and humor to bestow his blessings on my head so that I can write something interesting for you with my bare hands. 

Love, Laughter, and Peace

Himanshu R Nagpal

PS:- Handwriting is not related to one's level of intellect. Okay, Bye! 

PSS:- I'm looking for a suitable name for that 'species'. Suggestions are more than welcome. (I have a name in my mind let's call them/me Homo - Clumsiarian, what do you suggest?).