My Mother, Head Cover, and Education

My mother used to wear a sari many years ago. She would have only two or three kameez salwar sets-that too when she had to go to her in-laws’ village or her own native village. It was perfectly normal for us to see her in a sari. In fact we associated her sari with her office-formal wear it was. She never used to cover her head with it.

Then she started to wear a kameez salwar and with it, a dupatta over her head all the time. I took some time adjusting to it, but then it was the call of the day and she being the ultra-flexible person, took to wearing what was the demand of the times. Sari had suddenly become a lewd and un-Sikh like dress. She stowed her saris away in trunks and cupboards, only to take them out seasonally to air them. We would wear them for some functions and flaunt our grown up selves in a changed attire. I still have not overcome the scare of having a sari coming untied down to my feet in the middle of an important presentation or a class, so I avoid wearing it. Mom still wears and carries well a sari for some functions where she does not want to cover her head.

Yesterday, we were at a friend’s place. Mom took two of her books for that friend’s family to gift them. The family’s daughter-in- law C and our relative H served lunch. Mom kept talking to the grandmother of the family. Mom wore a white cotton suit and a white dupatta and she kept her head covered all the time. H knows my mom quite well, C was meeting her for the first time. C kept talking to mom quite condescendingly, even sympathetically. After lunch when the customary seating pattern of men sitting separately from the group of women was repeated, we sat in one of the many bedrooms in the house. I left them for a few moments to check on the kids sitting in the kids’ room. When I returned, H was just short of ROTFL. She said, “Didi, C asked aunty (my mom), Thora bahut parhey likhey wi ho? (Have you had any education?)” I was aghast. Mom is a Ph.D, for dear God’s sake. This was the first time mom had been asked a question like that. I didn’t like it, but tried to smile and asked C whatever made her think that she was not? She said it was because of the head covering (dupatta) she wore. She tried to apologize but I didn’t want her to feel bad. She had a right to her opinion too. Mom turned it into a light one by quipping, “No, I aint educated, I just wear them spectacles to give a semblance of an educated woman.”

*****

Below is a video of my mother speaking on Jalandhar DoorDarshan on Female Foeticide. It is a fragment of the program that lasted an hour. Kindly adjust with me for the poor quality of recording. Mampi to be blamed for holding the phone rather awkwardly.

Dear Mama

You retire today. But I know that you never tire, so you will never re-tire. You are off from your regular duty of administering. I know how much you relished doing it. You have practically thrown yourself into the task of making the surroundings, institutions and everybody around you visibly better than when you first find them. I use the verb ‘have’ instead of ‘had’ because you will always remain this way. There is no past tense in your life nor your career for there is nothing undone, nothing that was wished for and not achieved.

If there is a life packed with action, action and more action, it has to be yours. No travel has been too long, no hour too late for your work. I have looked upon you as a super-human and a super-mom. Life literally threw stones at you and you used them to build a house for all of us to live in. When I look at you, I see you dancing with joy at my wedding; I see you at the gate of our house on a scooter with loads of groceries in the dicky of the scooter; I see you walking into government and non-government offices and commanding respect; I see you leading your staff onto welcoming the chief minister of the state with élan; I see a life so full that there is no room for emptiness. Weathered, conditioned, beaten by the winds, your face today reflects the strength that you have achieved over the decades, the strength you want me to have. Whenever I am low, whenever I feel I am not getting my due, I think of a woman who has worked overtime (without that overtime allowance) to give a better opportunity to her students, her staff and to do more justice to her job. It is then, that I think that I have a long way to go. Your life, your history, your study-career is an example so close to home that I have never been able to think beyond it.

You are not the resting kinds, I know you will take up another administrative assignment. It would hardly matter if it is paid or honorary. What matters is that it must afford you the opportunity to do something radical and different-otherwise it wont be exciting enough for you.

I came into your life clad in that saffron dress when you were close to reaching the peak of your career. The happiness that you exuded at my entry in your life has always been with me-through shine and through rain. I remember you got your PhD degree a couple of months after I came, and we were all one proud family. Your daily routine of getting up way before everybody else, giving me a dose of ‘work hard, it will help you’ and banishing me to the roof-top to study alone has actually led me to finish my own PhD project. Living with you is a daily challenge, of having to prove myself close to what your expectation of ‘perfect’ is. It has worked wonderfully to my benefit.

There is so much that I wish to say today upon the superannuation of a brilliant service. I feel I have not been able to express even half of what I had to say to begin with. Perhaps this is how we all are-lost for words when we need them the most.

But I have found the words that I wanted to say.

I am proud that you are my mother-in-law.

Viral, Queues and Queen

On Friday, I took an off. Not because it was the release of Singh Is Kinng and I wanted to watch the first day first show. I told you, I m not those types. I took the off because I had viral fever. Waiting at an old doctors’ old styled clinic, I smsed all my friends and M a message, here it goes:

Puri Botal na sahi, Kam se kam ek jam toh ho jaye,
Milna na sahi, dua salaam toh ho jaye,
Jinki yaad mein hum bimaar padey hain,
Kam se kam unhe zukhaam toh ho jaye.
.
.
Oye haal ta puch lo….

And in the purest spirit of responding to the chappal chor shayar’s shers, my dear friends sent me sms’es and M called. The two hour wait, yes the whole two hours of wait at the doctor’s even in this 21st century, became a little tolerable amid a sweating session, rising body temperature and tiresome body ache. Finally two benign patients saw my yellowing eyes and deteriorating condition, and requested me to skip their turns in the queue purely on compassionate grounds. Taking cognisance of their insistent enthusiasm in letting me reach the doctor’s altar, I complied. The doc saw me, declared I was a gone case of viral fever, told me strictly to stay away from work, prescribed the meds , charged his fee and sent me home.

So what is the big deal, you would ask. You were sick, you were told to rest.

No, here lies the twist.

Only I didn’t go home. I consumed the first dose of meds and headed to the WestEnd Mall in response to my little family’s enthusiasm to watch Singh is King this weekend. I thought, abhi nahi toh kabhi nahi. To the utter dismay of my driver, in about 15 minutes of taking the medicine, we were cruising through multiple traffic jams in blistering heat. Yes, we reached the Waves Cinemas to buy tickets. Never seen such an adarsh patni, adarsh maa even in the K serials, right? Such a sacrifice !!! So mushy?? Okay okay, leave out the crying part for later.

For the first time in my life, I saw Punjab’s essentially male - crowd civilized and queued-up even in the sun. I wanted to click a discreet picture for you to prove my point, but I didn’t have enough energy to argue in case someone chose to exercise their right to object. So I let my phone remain in my handbag. And exercised my privilege of going in a separate queue meant for women (which had only me) and went in. Oh boy, inside was a different story. At 12: 30 pm any given day in such a mall, you won’t see such a crowd. What I was looking at was a motley crowd of rustic, first time visitors to the Westend Mall. They were everywhere, in the corridors, in the elevators, on the escalators. And my brilliant brain immediately told me that Singh was again going to be King, this time in theatres. I was so proud of my Kurta-Payajama clad non-turbanated pendu’s.

I reached the Box office and there was a queue, and actually people standing in a queue. I stood in one too. No, I didn’t exercise my right of being a woman this time. There was this guy who first analysed my queue from his own from the left side, crawled towards ours and then sheepishly tried to fit into ours. I was secretly wary of anyone with any mal-intentions trying to sneak into our queue. The moment he tried to poke his pathetic existence into our queue, I knocked (in the spirit of knocking on a door) with my cell phone on his shoulder. I actually wanted to prick his conscience with a pin, but I did not have a pin and his conscience was not too visible. Surprised, he looked back and I said, "Excuse me, but there is a queue here.” He said, “Yeah, I just have to enquire.” I said, “Yeah, so come in a queue.” He didn’t know, of course, that the lady was running a fever. He again said, “Madam, ticket nahi lena hai; enquire karna hai.” I said, “Yeah, so come in a queue.” I was reminded of my dear friend and colleague N’s words, “Once a bhenji, always a bhenji.” I think he heard my brain tick with these words. Shrugging his shoulders in an I GIVE UP BHENJI tone, he went back. My turn came and I bought tickets to Singh is King. Oh, I forgot to add that by now, I was sweating even in the strong AC due to the medicines as well as exertion. I still had 101 fever if not more. Such Devotion. Akshey Kumar, Are you reading??

A Teacher's Faith

First I just took it as one of those mushy mushy stories that keep getting circulated on the internet. Hungry as I was for something to cry on, I went on to read it, and loved it so much that I wanted to post it here-for all of us to read and learn the lessons life has to teach through those small gestures.

. . .

As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X’s and then putting a big “F” at the top of his papers. At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last.

However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise. Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners.... he is a joy to be around...”

His second grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle.”

His third grade teacher wrote, “His mother's death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken.”

Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class.”

By now, Mrs. Thompson realised the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy's. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag. Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one-quarter full of perfume... But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist. Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to.” After the children left, she cried for at least an hour.

On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children. Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her “teacher's pets.”

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. Six years went by before she got another notefrom Teddy. He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in life.

Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he'd stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had in his whole life.

Then four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favourite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer.

...The letter was signed,

Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

The story does not end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he had met this girl and was going to be married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit at the wedding in the place that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom. Of course, Mrs. Thompson did.

And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing. Moreover, she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together.They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear, “Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference.”Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, “Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you! "

. . .

Well, I guess the story about his founding the Stoddard Cancer Ward is not so authentic, but the idea behind the story sure is !!

As teachers, we all got a duty towards every single child that comes to us with a faith, a gleam in his/her eyes. We got no right to diminish it, we got no right to demean it. Our students are our teachers. Lets learn from them!