Message to my mother on Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day Mom! Today you are 80 years or thereabout old. You have been in eternal bliss and away from me for forty years. During the last four decades, I have continually looked for ways to reach you. I am told that your two eldest sons gave you a solemn farewell complete with the citation of the holy vedas, offering of pindas and largesse to Brahmins, as per the Hindu Sanatan Dharma you had instilled in us. I was yet to receive my sacred thread and my resume was considered incomplete to participate in the rituals. As a young skinny boy, hardly six, I probably watched, from the sidelines, my brothers perform the thirteen-day valediction rituals.  As you bade us bye, my little innocence was busy munching cucumbers and playing hide and seek with my cousins.  

Mom, since then I have always imagined you in the small meditations and mindfulness exercises I do, whenever I wake up early. At times, on my wife’s behest, I ring a bell in front of our small family altar. I believe you hear us, don’t you? However, without a face, it has always been very difficult, mom, to connect to you. Whenever I want to meet you, I substitute you through the face of your second elder sister and often through your second youngest daughter – for I am told that they resemble you the most. By the way, mom, your sister has set out to meet you. It has been almost a year and I believe you are together now.    

Today, I thought I would try a postmodern method to get across my love to you. Mom, you know what, now, they have something called Facebook and many other facilities to send messages directly to the intended. One young and chic looking American man, who looks a bit like Thuliama’s son, Devi Charan, invented it and it works wonder. I am posting this message there, for you to like. I know you didn’t go to school and probably do not understand English. No matter, mom, they say that the language of love is universal. Kindly use this language to get to my message.

Thank you very much for bringing me into this world, mom. Do you remember the day you begot me? I believe it was a hot summer day that I decided to emerge out of you after nine month’s of nestling in your warmth. I am told that the weather was so hot that you had chosen to remain outside the house for most of that day. After running several other household chores you had gone to the horse stable to clean it. Typical of the customs of our village at the time, you were not spared from doing your usual jobs, most of them tedious, even on your expected delivery date. At the stable, I am told, on a heap of semi-chewed horse fodder you delivered me. Is this true, mom?

When I first went to school, the school headmaster asked me my age. I didn’t know what to say. My uncle (remember your dewar, mom?), who was with me that day didn’t know either! He scratched his head, half closed his eyes and quickly connived. He recollected things in a flash. ‘Sir, this one was born when the peach trees were in full fruit.’ The teacher and ‘kaka’ then bent the knuckles of their fingers and together agreed that I was born in July. As for date, it was the teacher’s call. He assigned me with one – the 26^th of July. Don’t feel bad for this, mom, for I am not the lone victim of this game. In our part of the world, the age of boys and girls from my generation and generations before me, was mostly approximated. It was like the value of pi –not exact. Illiterate parents and elders who had no written records to fall on depended on circumstantial evidences and elements to fix birthdays for their children. So when children came of age and parents decided to send them to school, age of a child always came up for a roundtable sort of discussions, between the teacher, the to-be-taught and the parents. My kaka must be correct, for even Facebook reminds me of my birthday every 26^th of July.

Everyone is fine here, mom. Of course, you know that your youngest daughter bade us goodbye about sixteen years after you left.  Thuliama had taken good care of her after your departure. She had grown up to be a sweet beautiful girl. Please giver her my love.  Your eldest son from your first partner is fine. He has grown a bit old now. He is very ambitious and always dreams of making a lot of money. While in Neoly he tried marketing all kinds of obscure things like black ginger and magical plants. He loves me a lot and remembers you fondly. He is in Buffalo City, USA, should you like to contact him. Remember, mom, you had an additional daughter? Although she is dad’s daughter, you reared her as your own. In fact, she was the only one who received your tutelage and care into her teen. To the rest of us, particularly to me, she took your place after you. Thanks to her as well as my other female siblings, I received a lot of maternal care, near maternal. Dictionary and relationship formulary may not allow me to call it maternal, but it was; it may be sisterly or ‘sisternal’, but very fine. 

Your second son Damber has grown up to be gem of a person. He lives in Thimphu, Bhutan. Although he is bald, a bit like an American eagle, he looks robust and handsome.  He doesn’t have that runny nose and skeletal looks anymore. I believe dad had wanted him to be a doctor.  With an MBBS and an MPhil in medical psychiatry, he has proven dad’s prophesy right. He is doing very well for himself. He even knows how to manage postnatal complications. Wish he were there forty years ago to help you with that fatal placenta retention, mom. You have two grandchildren from him, both adorable kids. Your second daughter Chhai lives in in the USA today. If kaka had not removed her from school soon after your departure, she would be a world leader today. Like hundreds of other people, socio-geo-political complications forced her out of Neoly Bhutan two decades and a half ago. A beauty and brain in one package, she has four twinkling daughters and a dashing son.

Your third daughter Radha didn’t grow very tall, but can call the world her home. Like maili didi, she has resettled in the USA and enjoys being there. She has a very caring husband and, today, spends her days taking care of her granddaughter and watching fake wrestling matches on television. These wrestling matches, mom, show huge oiled up men and women in underpants beat each other in turn. I don’t know whey saili didi likes this, for she is a docile being. She has two handsome sons, happily settling down in life. Last year she wrote a very poignant eulogy in yours and dad’s memory. She read it out from Virginia, USA, while daju and I cried in front of our laptop over Skype.  As your next child, I am fine. After you left me, I had a difficult time adjusting to the new home and new life. Kaka was challenged having to take care of seven of us in addition to five of his own. Food was not good and once I even suffered from night blindness and nearly had to spend a night at the neighbour’s field toilet. Not to worry, mom. I have overcome that and have come a long way in life.  Today, I even have a LinkedIn account, where scores of professionals have recommended me for various business management skills. I have also not gotten into any serious bad habit. I chewed doma for sometime, but quit before I fell into halitosis. I do social drinking, but usually one tall can of lager is enough. Today, I work in Druk Holding & Investments, the largest company in Bhutan and they call me Associate Director. I work as a management consultant and advise companies on manpower planning and organisational structuring. As you might guess, I understood manpower rightsizing and organisational issues rather early in life. We were a family of about twenty and as we sat on the kitchen floor yoga style for dinner, hierarchy was important, the line of command was clear and the channel of communication only one way - top down! Given the socio-political complications I may never become a full director, but I continue to bide my time, mom. I have a small family of my own – a lovely wife and two smart boys. My only daughter has been with you since 2011. Give her my love. 

Kamala, your fourth daughter, is a tiny, but exuberant woman. She lives in Daifam; remember Nalapada, where you and dad used to rear a farm of cows and buffaloes? Daifam is not far from there. She has three grown up and caring sons and an elderly husband, who is much improved from his initial slightly wayward manners. Rest of her siblings love her a lot and wherever we can and she needs, we help her out with little bit of moral and financial support. Your second youngest daughter is also in Thimphu. She is an agriculturist and shows farmers how to grow oilseeds. We used to grow a lot of mustard in Nainatal, mom. Hema would have been a real help if you were around today. Hema, everyone says, resembles you the most. So, whenever daju and I want to meet you, we go to her place and look at her. She is stern, but loveable. I believe you were also stern and once, during a quarrel, picked up dad and wrestled him to the floor. They say dad was small built like me, is that so? Hema has a daughter, very charming and tall and a son, who is a bit shy, but brilliant. He can do the Rubik Cube in 28 seconds and his cousins are envious of him. He is the only grandson of yours who can do that. The rest are struggling to complete the Rubic in a day even after rummaging through Google and YouTube. 

Wherever you are, I feel you are watching down on my siblings and me just like Mufasa watched over Simba in The Lion King - that cute cartoon movie! Thanks to your timeless blessings, deathbed wishes and, perhaps, the heavenly blessings, all of your children are fine.  When you and dad left, seven months apart, forty years ago everyone in our village thought god and humanity had failed. Everyone cried and everyone prayed for you and for us. Today, some of them are even jealous of us – as you have been at peace for long and we, your children, have enjoyed a fair amount of success in life, so far. I hope to meet you one day. Until then, good-bye and a Very Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! My regards to dad; please tell him I will Skype him on Father’s Day!