Unnoticed

Waking up with a start on hearing a thud and throwing away the blanket that draped me, I found myself amongst a pile of chemistry and physics guides.

Sleep still lingered in my eyes and I frantically tried to rub it away and half walked, half fell outside my room.

She greeted me with a smile and said, ‘I didn’t want to wake you, I thought you had stayed up to study so I let you sleep. I guess it was the sound of the laundry being thrown into the basket that woke you.’

‘You should’ve woken me’, I said, ‘You shouldn’t have done all the housework by yourself’.

‘It doesn’t matter’ she smiles, through her ruffled hair and little beads on her forehead I could say she was more exhausted than she looked.

Through the chaos and clatter of early morning cleaning, I make my way to the dining table deciding I needed to look to my stomach before a bath.

‘Give me two minutes; I wanted to make hot parathas for breakfast for you” came her voice.

I dozed over my plate and the sweet joyous song she hummed reached my ears amidst the clanging of utensils and the sizzle of the spinach leaves.

And soon I gobbled up the parathas without a word of gratitude for the pains she took amidst her busy schedule to look to me.

After breakfast she shooed me away for a bath and when I was done, she had cleared up the table and was busy cooking lunch.

I popped in to ask if I may help half praying she’d say ‘no’ as I was so tired that I felt I must rest.

She said what I longed to hear and I made my way back to my room to find all my books neatly piled and my blanket rolled and put away and my favourite teddy bear in its place. She knew how much Snowball mattered to me.

I took him up and moved my fingers over his snowy fur and his little pink heart thinking how pretty he was and the joy he gave me every time I looked at him.

An idle mind was always a devils workshop but somehow the devil in my case shifts his business to running back in the calendar.

I thought of all the times I had not listened to what she had said. It hurt her if I made an upset and forlorn face and sometimes I couldn’t help it.

There were so many things we didn’t agree on. And I couldn’t listen to it all the while, could I?

My mind started racing back in time, I wasn’t old enough to remember stuff but I pictured it all the same.

The joy she must have had when I was born, the great dreams they both must have adorned around the little cot, the satisfaction that toothless smile must have given them, the times when they stayed up whole nights to see their ‘little girl’ sleep peacefully.

Her instructions to me on first day at school… ‘Do not talk to anybody outside the school building, go with only your bus driver, do not leave the classroom without asking your teacher…’

To me she was the world at that time, she still is, only, I fail to acknowledge it now.

I remembered how the other kids used to cry for their mum. I never did. I didn’t need to. I enjoyed school and I knew I would go to her soon if I behaved well.

She was the reason my handwriting used to look like printed material and my colouring was well appreciated.

I thought of all those sunny days when she used to wake me for school, bathe me, put on my uniform, comb my hair...

Endless…

Today again I see myself as her little girl. There was a time when I couldn’t talk and she understood everything I had to say.

Today I could talk and sometimes thought she didn’t understand me.

Where was the little girl?

Where was the girl who would go bounding to give her a kiss, a hug, whisper a kind word in her ears, be upto some mischief just to trouble her.

She was here, I knew, within, only, she didn’t rise now, at least not often.

‘Have a headache?’ comes her voice and lifts me from my trance.

‘Yes, a little’ goes a meek reply.

‘Let me massage it for you’ she says.

I lay my head on her lap. Her tender fingers massaged balm onto my forehead. I could feel they shook, they were tired. She wasn’t in good health too these days.

I closed my eyes and found myself racing back into a deep peaceful feeling I longed for.

I forget all my worries when I lay on her lap. Its her soft breathing, her loving arms, everything.

They take away all sorrows, I never felt so much at home, His home.

As the evening star greeted me with her shine, I found my headache going off, and I raced to the kitchen hoping to sneak something to eat.

I found her there, bent over the dinner. She smiled again at me, ‘come to eat?’ I was asked.

I gave her a sheepish grin. There was mist in my eyes.

No matter how far I was, how many disagreements we’ve had, all those times I was so angry,

I knew she loved me, dearly, truly.

I was ashamed not to be able to give it back in the same pure selfless way.

And even then all her little sacrifices went unnoticed. She looked to our needs, made us happy.

We thanked her, but none ever thought about what she would like.

She spent her days on us. We took her for granted.

And yet she loved us, in the same way, deeply, truly.

Unnoticed she was, pure she is.

Mother, I love you.