My Mother - I

This is something that I have been wanting to write down for a very long time. I wanted to write about my mother and the topic is more related to the childhood trauma that I have undergone.The primary reason why I have been procrastinating the activity  is that I'm scared that these repressed recollections would make my mind more depressed. But I have been reading that penning down the feelings can make me feel better. I do not know if this exercise is going to help me to recover. 

My mother was the second child of my maternal grandparents. She has an elder brother and three younger sisters. Out of all the five children she and my youngest aunt were the fairest and were considered to be very beautiful. I do not know if this point has some relevance to my story; nevertheless I'm just penning down the fact as I know. She did her Bsc in Mathematics followed by BEd and considers herself to be very intelligent in mathematics. Her brother (my uncle) joined police department after graduation and all her sisters, except the youngest, were also educated in the same line (BSc, BEd). The three sisters further joined teaching. My mother and her very next sister are retired now. My youngest aunt is always an exception and have made me wonder, what she expects from her life. I should write more about her in another post. 

The siblings never behaved friendly among them, though aggression was absent. Uncle was always silent but opened his mouth either to reply to his mother (my granny) or to his wife. If at all he spoke he was loud, either shouting at his mother or scolding his wife for reasons I could never understand. I have heard about me being his pet when I was small but after I grew up I never found any pampering from his side, though he has been soft in talking to me. He still talks soft to me (I consider the absence of negative words from him as soft and have observed that his sound is mild while talking to me at rare occasions). After I was married, I found him to be always confused as to what he needs to talk to me. Whenever I visited him, he always asked if it rains in Mumbai/Bangalore, or whether it hot in Mumbai/Bangalore. He also asked how Mr.D. is doing. With Mr.D. he spoke with respect. Mr.D. could easily fool uncle with his outwardly Mr.Perfect behaviors. 

Another thing that I have observed is that my uncle spoke only to me, among the his nieces and nephews. My brother forcefully conducted leisure talks with him and he replied back. Why he is like this, I do not know. Some say that he is childless and that makes him behave this way. May be. 

So back to my mother. My mother too spoke less with her siblings. She has not been a talkative person from the time I could recollect, but what made her stand out is that she seldom smiled too. Her rare smiles were never beyond a limit and it's difficult for one to make out whether she smiles or not. And laughter - I think she has never laughed in her life. The siblings always were respectful to both my mother and uncle while speaking. Might be this habit of them made my mother and uncle this way. 

My mother has always been unpleasant in her own way. Anything and anybody whom she felt moves beyond her wishes irritated her. If at all she felt someone behaved not as expected by her, they became her enemies and she never let away a single opportunity to trouble them to whatever extend it is possible. The word called 'forgiveness' never existed in her dictionary. Though it is difficult for her 'enemies' to understand what went wrong she tried her level best to punish them. Anyone would be surprised with the enemy list that she maintained. It starts from her own mother (my grandmother). She always found pleasure in talking bad about her mother. On her widowhood, she told that granny had wished for her widowhood. Otherwise she had complaints about her sister (the very next sibling of her's) and brother-in-law. She lied about them that they are liars. She gossiped about them that they are gossipers. I have no memory of mother speaking to her mother. Yes, I can recollect two instances wherein she shouted at her mother. This was after my father expired and grandmother kept quite and later told me that it is mother's tensions that makes her behave so and hence I shouldn't be bothering them.

Other than her siblings and mother she had heavy problems with her colleagues. She would stop talking to them. Our neighbors had issues. She stopped talking to them. The church people had issues. She stopped talking t them. Not just that. Whenever anyone among them met with some problem in their lives or whenever some else gossiped about them her face illuminated with boundless ecstasy.