The earliest memories I have of Diwali are of my grandma sitting on a chair and instructing Panditji and mom in the art of making Gujias. I never understood how someone who didn’t themselves cook, be the person giving instructions. How naive I was at that young age of 4 or 5 years.
Much cooking happened in my grandma's/our household when I was a young boy. Rituals were celebrated as pedantically as one could imagine. Traditions past lived as if time had never changed. My grandma’s whims and our families celebration-dogmas were the fancy of my mother and the staff at home. Things worked like clockwork for her. No fuss. No noise. Everything materialized from thin air for Dadi.
Those were my memories. And now, years later, this Diwali, I see mom, now much older than Dadi was when I was a toddler coming of age, slaving away still in the kitchen. Not giving instructions, but still playing worker bee. Working away, continuing traditions, and keeping our life today connected to our households life past.
Mom, just a few months away from 75, and having had her cast for her fractured thumb and bruised left hand removed yesterday, was standing and rolling gujiyas a day after the doctor told her that it might be a few weeks before she got full use of her hand. In command of our ancestral home today, but working just as hard. Not instructing, but rather still working to make others happy.
My mother has aged 46 years since I came into this world, but those 46 years have made her a stronger, smarter, kinder, prettier, and more gracious a person. When life sends her lemons she makes lemonade. When Diwali comes and she is recovering from a terrible fall on her face, she rises and makes Gujiyas so an annual tradition and its finesse sees no compromise in her lifetime.
She is but one representative of women who keep life running, sparkling, shining, sweeter and more organized by being super-humans, Unsung heroes. Under appreciated. Over worked. And never given their due. But tireless and indefatigable. This Diwali, I hope light is shed glowingly on mom’s and women in general. The smarter of the two human sexes, who is able to live, love, celebrate and nurture - against all odds presented to them by life and family.
We women love to do what we do & are happy &at peace.....&in harmony with the choice we made many years ago- to love unconditionally .
Posted by: Manjul Srivastava | Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 07:59 AM
You indeed do, Manju Bua.
Miss you.
Posted by: Suvir Saran | Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 10:27 AM