A Tearful Farewell To My Mother

Though it was half past six in the morning, I was still half asleep. The door of my room was opened a little and my mother, clad in pink saree, walked into the room. She drew an easy chair to the window and prepared herself to watch the sunrise. It was her habit to sip the coffee while looking at the sun rise gradually behind the clouds.

 My wife rushed into my room,”dear.” she cried,”the pundit is expected anytime now. Get ready and prepare yourself to perform the rituals.”

  I was shaken out of my sleep and looked at the easy chair beside the window. The chair was empty. So I was dreaming all the while. Only the day before yesterday I consigned my mother’s body to flames at the crematorium. It was my dream or a paranormal experience since my mother was very much attached to me.

  My mother breathed her last at the ripe old age of one hundred and three years with the name of Sai Baba on her lips. Her last words were,’Son, Sai Baba’s calling me.” Then she lay still.

  My mother was born in a hamlet, called Reddy Naidu Brahmana Agraharam near Machilipatnam, Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh in 1918.

  She was born into a large family and studied upto fourth standard. She was lean and tall for her age. When she reached her ninth year, tongues in the neighbourhood began to wag that my grandfather was not serious enough about getting her married.

  A funny thing had happened which ultimately led to her happy marriage with my father. My father was a municipal doctor at Machilipatnam. My mother’s younger brother, Sharma aged five, stuffed a tamarind seed in his nostril. My grandmother and grandfather could not extract it out though they tried all the grandma techniques at home. So my grandfather took the boy to the municipal dispensary, at Machilipatnam. My father extracted the tamarind seed from the boy’s nostril with forceps deftly.

  Then my grandfather inquired of my father whether he was an eligible bachelor of the town - his caste, creed, clan etc. When these preliminary details satisfied my grandfather, a meeting of elders of both sides was arranged. My grandfather (my mother’s father) Rama Seshaiah agreed to pay six hundred rupees as dowry.

  Thus my mother was married off at the tender age of nine. When she was escorted to her in-laws house, she was scared of the strangers there and began to cry. Then her father-in-law lifted her in his arms and said cajolingly,”child, don’t cry. This is your home hereafter.”

  She was sent to Madras to lead family life with my father, when she was sixteen years. She bore her first male child - my eldest brother when she was twenty. In all she bore seven children, out of which four survive till day.

  My father had studied both Ayurveda and Allopathy. So he used to manufacture Ayurvedic medicines also to supplement his income along with his practice in Allopathy.

  As my father’s medical practice and sales of Ayurvedic medicines had increased gradually, he got a big house constructed at T.Nagar, Madras.

  My mother was the queen of the huge house with five men and women servants to attend to the household chores. They were Annasamy, his wife Govindamma, son Balakrishnan, daughter Radha and her daughter Chinnaponnu who was married to Balakrishnan.

  These servants were at the beck and call of my mother. 

  She celebrated all the festivals with great pomp and gaiety. Pongal was her most favourite festival during which she would exhibit the dolls and invite women and girls to witness them. The women guests were offered bananas, betel leaves and a piece of cloth to stitch a jacket.

  In addition, we had a buffalo also. My mother used to milk the buffalo at 3 AM in the morning and prepare coffee for my doctor brother who had to catch the train from Kodambakkam to Park and from Park to Ponneri, where he worked as a government doctor.

  She was an unqualified but good pharmacist too. When my father prescribed the required quantities of ingredients to make required quantities of medicines, my mother collected all the ingredients and oversaw the servants prepare them. Huge quantities of Chyawanprash, Draksharishta, Dasamoolarishta, blood tonic, syrup vasaka etc., were turned out by mother’s blessed hands.

  She led a full and fruitful life of over a century and bore seven children, twelve grandchildren and sixteen great grandchildren.

  She had a fall while going to the washroom at midnight. The next day her legs were immobilised. As her other vital organs were failing one by one, she was hospitalised. She suffered the pangs of death for two days at the hospital. Finally she left the world with God’s name on her lips.

  As my cousin Anand observed rightly, with the death of my mother, the generation of our relatives who had actively participated in Gandhi’s meetings had come to an end.

  I fell out of my thoughts as the pundit cried in a shrill voice to get myself ready for the final rites to be performed for my mother.