The Harassed Mother

                              

Mira was blessed with a lovely family, and her children were the apples of her eye. She doted on them, and all day and night she was busy, trying to provide them with the most nutritious, and appetizing food, dressing them up daily with freshly washed and starched clothes, and keeping their home sparkling clean. This she managed to do with her eight hours duties in the office. She had married at the age of twenty-four, and her eldest child was a thirteen year old daughter, the next was a boy. He had just crossed the age of twelve, and the youngest were two sons, who were twins. She was very proud of them. They were so cute, that they had become the favorite in the locality. But the unfortunate kids, invariably had their cheeks pinched, whenever they went out to the park to play. She had given a big party recently on their fifth birthday.

Then from nowhere, the Corona Virus pandemic arrived. Everything in Mira’s household turned topsy-turvy. Her husband Aloke started working from home, and so did she. Her children stopped going to school, and had to attend classes on-line. The net effect was such, as if a hurricane had swept through, and left everything in a fiasco. To measure the ferocity of the hurricane, the apt scale was Mira’s appearance. The buxom cheerful person became a wiry, cranky individual, perennially irritable, ready to fly into a temper at the least provocation.

 The following is a graphic account of a single day, followed by similar days, during the Pandemic, which will portray the life in Mira’s family, which almost made her crazy.

At six o’clock in the mornings, Mira would hurry down to get everything organized, as her motto was ‘perfection’. How she loved her family, and she always wanted them to have the best. As she was supposed to work from home, later on during office hours, she would not be able to attend to them. Her husband had requested her to order Biryani for lunch, with Firni as dessert. The maid who had recently joined, was not adept in cooking, and had to be guided. As usual with Mira, all the preparations had to be perfect.

Her husband, Aloke, followed her down, but something had upset him. He was not in a very pleasant mood, and started the day with a string of complaints about the children. It seemed the children were so rowdy the previous day that he could not concentrate on his important office assignments, and that put him in a caustic mood. Mira was a bit superstitious and believed “the morning showed the day” So she got prepared for the worst.

After Mira had seen to everything, so that the household could run smoothly, she sat down in the lounge with her laptop. Her boss was on Zoom, discussing certain problems which their Company was facing. At that critical moment, the two twins, Tim and Tom came running, and started to tell her excitedly the damage which they had caused. They were very vociferous in their apology, to the embarrassment of the Mother, in front of the Boss. As children were told that there was a Lock Down and they were not supposed to step out, they were playing ball in the bedroom, and the tube light got shattered, and there were splinters of glass all over the room. Mira excused herself, and told Mr.Mathew that she would be back in five minutes. She had to leave in haste, otherwise the twins would get injured by the glass shards, if she did not clear it immediately. She then thought to herself that if the Twins had had school, she would have had some peace. Very gingerly, she tried to pick up the pieces, but the glass was sharp and brittle, and she got one, or two deep cuts, which started bleeding profusely.

The result was that she had to attend to her injury immediately, so she could not go back to work for quite some time. She explained to her boss her problem, and continued with the discussion. She was trying to convince him about the issue, from her point of view, when she heard a loud noise from upstairs. This time the sound was so loud, and terrifying. Then she heard somebody cry out in pain, so without even an apology to her boss, she rushed upstairs. All the children had gathered in the balcony. Max had been doing some gymnastic exercises, by attaching some ropes to the grill, on top of the railings, on the balcony. The structure could not take his weight, and had come off entirely from the frame, and Max had landed on his face. Blood oozed out from his mouth, making him, and the family nervous. Mira rushed to get some iced water from the refrigerator. In the meantime the twins finding the top part gone from the railings, started climbing them, to look at the undiscovered world downstairs. Mira was on time to come back to the balcony, and to pull back Tom precariously dangling, with his feet far above the floor, not being able to come down, in fear of falling with a crash.

With Mira’s blood pressure having gone up, she decided to take off from work, for an hour, so that she could calm herself. She closed her eyes, reclined on the sofa, attempting at composure. Two minutes had not even elapsed, when her daughter Lolly came barging in, “Mummy, I am getting bored. Now that I cannot go to school, I don’t know what to do. I am trying to bake a cake, but the instruction says, ‘six ounces’. How much is that?” Mira satisfied her, with the required information. After fifteen minutes to be precise, she heard her screaming from the kitchen, “Mummy, come fast! My apron has caught fire. Mummy I am on fire!” Mira rushed to the kitchen, her heart pounding and her head bursting with the rush of blood. There was a jug of water standing on the counter. She took it quickly, and emptied out the entire contents on Lolly. Luckily she was able to put out the fire without the girl getting singed. But Lolly had got a shock, and she clung on to her mother, and drenched her shoulders with her tears. This was not all. Last of all Mira’s husband appeared on the scene, and shouted that if he had to endure a whole year of such pandemonium in the house, he would land up in a mental asylum, and blamed Mira for having such children who were beyond control. He also let her know that his life had become a curse because of a microscopic Virus!

 This was a picture of a day during the Pandemic in Mira’s family. Months after months elapsed. Covid-19 reigned supreme. Mira did everything to keep her family safe from the Virus, and endured the day to day strain, and stress, without giving in.

After a year of struggle, the brave warrior, now emaciated and fragile, sat shivering on her bed, not having the strength to get up. She pressed her throat, as she was wracked with spasms of coughing. She took a sip of water, and told her family with a quivering voice, a voice heavy with tears, “I am going to the Covid Hospital. I may not come back to you, for the Virus might take me away. Look after each other, and may God bless you all”. With those words resonating in the lounge, Mira was lifted up into the Ambulance. She just gave a long, lingering look at her family, but knew that the time of parting had come, and she must leave.