Dedicated to my greatest and dearest teacher - my mother
They say that life experiences mold our character. It's the circumstances and the situations (and how we react to them) that shape our lives and fortunes. Quite true. However, I will also add that people too influence our lives as much. Much of what we eventually become in life is often due to certain people in our lives who would have inspired us over the years, by setting examples and with their teachings. One such person for me is my mother. Whatever I am today, I owe it to her. There are several people who have inspired me in many ways but perhaps no one else has impacted my life as significantly as she has. Not just because her personality has (definitely) exerted the greatest influence in my overall development but also because it was she who with her love and belief in me, made me independent and self-reliant.
I was lucky to be born into a family where there has never been a shortfall of love and care. And being the youngest one, I have always been pampered by everyone, more so by mummy. When I was a child, I always had someone or the other to lean on to get a job done for me. It was not until my 9th standard that I learnt to ride a cycle and started going to school on my own. Otherwise, before that, it was my brother who used to drop me at school before leaving for his college and he also would pick me up after my school got over. I thought it was my right to be given a ride every day! Other than my studies, I never really helped in doing any household tasks like cleaning, cooking or shopping the groceries. Moreover, I didn't have much of an idea (nor had I ever tried to learn) about the various household chores. I had got used to being treated like a prince. So much that even till my tenth standard, I seldom ate on my own rather mummy used to feed me. I believed I was still a child! I was good in studies but not so much in the practical life-skills. I was yet to grow up in the real sense.
But the turnaround happened when after completing my tenth standard, I decided to go to Delhi for my higher studies so that I could avail myself of the better coaching facilities to prepare for the IIT entrance exam. But it involved a rider too -- I had to stay away from my family, on my own and most importantly, away from mummy. I had never stayed away from her, I was so used to having her around for my every little and big need that I wouldn't even go to visit any relative during my school vacations if she wasn't accompanying me. But surprisingly this time, I wasn't thinking much about how I would manage to do without her, rather I had already made up my mind to leave for Delhi. Mummy though was very reluctant, understandably so, to let me go so far away from her to an unknown city and that too when I had never before lived all alone. But I remained defiant that it was the question of my career and my long cherished dream -- to get into IIT. I argued that if I were to fulfill my dream, then we had to make some sacrifices, even if it meant that I had to stay thousands of kilometres away from my family. Given my persistence, eventually everyone had to yield to my wish.
Though initially I put on a brave face and was actually pretty much excited about it but as the day to leave for Delhi approached, it gradually dawned on me how hard it would be to deal with the emotional vacuum that I was to face while staying in Delhi, away from mummy for a considerable period of time. Though she would have visited me from time to time but mostly I would be on my own, so it was not going to be easy. I suddenly developed cold feet. "Should I really have to go that far for higher studies and for IIT coaching?", I started having second thoughts. But my admission had already been done in a school in Delhi and the academic session was just about to start in a few days. So there was no turning back. I was tense.
It was once again mummy who came to my rescue. She decided that she too would accompany me to Delhi and would stay there with me for about three months till I got attuned to the new environment - with my new school, my new friends and the place. I had never been to anywhere outside of Odisha until then and thus Delhi seemed very much a foreign place to me. It wasn't really easy initially, it took me quite a while to get adjusted to the new surroundings and the fast ways of the city. But since mummy was still there with me, I felt confident and remained worry-free all along.
On the other hand however, back home since mummy wasn't around, it was getting difficult for Mamu to manage both fronts - his business as well as the home responsibilities - with each passing day. The final straw came when our maid stopped coming and Mamu and my brother found it really difficult to manage things. So it became imperative that mummy returned back to Bhubaneswar at the earliest. That put her in a dilemma, it was probably one of the most difficult decisions that she had to make -- on one hand, she had me -- the apple of her eyes -- who was yet to learn the ways of the world and knew not how to stand on his own. She was also worried about my health, given my history of illnesses in the past. All along during her sojourn, she kept on insisting me to learn how to cook so that I wouldn't have to depend on the spicy and unhealthy food from the hotels once she was gone and thus the chances of my falling ill would have been minimized. But I had brushed away her suggestion every time, giving some excuse or the other. So in a way, I wasn't ready yet to live on my own, she knew. But on the other hand, mamu and my elder brother were finding it difficult without the services of the maid. If she returned back to Bhubaneswar, I would have been left high and dry at Delhi. However she also couldn't turn her back on her other responsibilities back home. She had to make a difficult choice. I too got nervous on hearing that she was to return back to Bhubaneswar. I wanted her to stay with me instead, for a few more days. It's often said that a mother's love can be blind at times. But toughening her heart against her natural desire to yet again let me lean on her, mummy instead chose to go back to Bhubaneswar and opined that it was high time for me to learn living on my own. Because she knew that if she continued to stay back with me, I would never try to learn to live on my own and that would have only hurt me in the long run. After all it was I who had chosen to come over to Delhi, so it was now upon me to stand up to the challenge. The decision though wouldn't have been easy for her at all for sure.
It wasn't easy for me too. After seeing her off at the railway station, when I went back home, I found a stinging loneliness waiting to greet me, something that I had never experienced before. Also the enormousness of the challenges that lay ahead -- living on my own -- overwhelmed me. I had never imagined that it would be so difficult. I felt like I was in the middle of a deep sea with no one around. But before she left for Bhubaneswar, in the few days that she was with me, she made sure that I was somewhat better prepared for the little battles that I was to encounter in the coming days and months. She taught me how to cook a few simple dishes and also left behind a diary in which she had written down all the recipes in simple steps. I was completely ignorant about most things, even the simplest ones like choosing the perfect ones when buying vegetables. So through letters, she taught me every little thing that I needed to know about house-keeping, to be able to be on my own -- be it about cleaning the house or washing my clothes, and other important tips. Still I felt absolutely helpless without mummy.
It was in the kitchen where I started my learning journey. Sometimes it was too much salt in the curry and sometimes I would have completely forgotten the milk pan that I had placed on the burner. Sometimes I had to make do with burnt rotis while sometimes I failed to wake up in time in the morning. I stumbled and I fumbled, I fell and I failed, but I took each failure as a lesson and tried not to repeat those mistakes the next time.
Mummy has always been a remarkable teacher who taught me not just to be confident and irrepressible but had also always taught us that no task was too difficult to complete if we put our heart into it and worked diligently. Following her instructions and just by observing everyone around me, I started to gradually find my feet.
It's been close to nineteen years now that I am living on my own. Now when I look back at those initial few days when Mummy taught me the little life lessons and other tidbits, I realise that had she not chosen to return back to Bhubaneswar and made me fight it out on my own, I couldn't have become as self-reliant as I am today.
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Be Self-Reliant
Source: www.desicomments.com |
Thus the most important lesson that Mummy taught me was to "Be Self-Reliant"!
