Amma

I think atleast in my outward expressions of love, I’ve at times been a little partial to my father. But deep down in my heart, I love both my mother and father equally and I love them so much more than I do anyone else in this whole wide world. Yet, as I look back on my days of growing up, I feel I’ve always tried to express my love for my father in ways a bit more obvious. I’ve always wanted to be approved by Achan and approval from him still means to me the greatest thing ever.

Whenever Amma asked me not to do certain things, I would reply ‘I’ll get Achan’s permission, ha!’. Maybe it is because I’m a girl that I’ve always felt the incessant need to be pampered more by my father than by my mother. As a little girl, I was identified as the ‘daddy’s kid’ of the family while my brother claimed himself to be the ‘mama’s boy’. The 4 year old me was more than happy with the recognition of being Achan’s favourite. But this doesn’t mean I loved my mother any less than I did my father.

Amma has been there, like every loving mother, in my every endeavour. She has always made my little successes feel like glorious triumphs through her smile, congratulating words, and her other expressions of love for me which always start with the sentence ‘Amma is so proud of you today!’ and escalate with her warm hugs and kisses.

Those times when I was sad, she saw right through me and consoled me while allowing me to cry it all out. And so I would cry my eyes out while lying on her shoulders. Just lying there on her shoulders and feeling gentle pats of hers on my back would make me realize that there is nobody in this entire universe who would understand my worries better than Amma. That is when I’d slowly start speaking to her of what had broken me down. Though I’d be speaking in stifled sobs with frantic efforts to sound clear, she would understand everything I said. She is my mother and so she will always understand. She will understand even those things that I do not say.

Amma is the one who can make me happy when I’ve hit the nadir and happier when I’m the happiest. She loves me for what I am and never expects anything in return. I love her for making me who I am. I love her for being there for my every little thing. I love her for listening kindly to the random little lines I once sang out of the blue as a kid and for jotting them down as my first poem ever. I love her for teaching me not to fight with my brother and though I still don’t follow this in the family, I certainly have made it my policy to have an amiable nature towards everyone in general. I love her for all the uncountable sacrifices she has made for my brother and me. I love her for the pain she has taken to groom two completely unruly kids into the socially acceptable forms that we are now. It must have been hell for our parents, especially our mother, to make sure we did not break each other’s bones or so in fits of uncontrollable fury over things like one of us changing the T.V channel just for the annoyance of the other, not letting the other play on the cycle, or being ridiculed by the other for losing in a game etc.

I could just go on writing an endless list of things for which I love Amma. But the fact is that I don’t need to search for reasons to substantiate my love for her. I love her, with all my heart and I will love her for as long as I live. I love her because she is my mother, my mentor, my friend and my everything.

I pick up trivial fights with her so often that in fact when I go home for a weekend and don’t have even as much of a small quarrel with her, it seems like something has gone seriously wrong. It just feels out of place to not indulge in arguments with her and I’m pretty sure she feels the same too when we have an abnormally peaceful environment at home. It then seems so surreal that we both feel the incessant need to re-establish our love for each other and that’s when she comes up to me asking if there’s anything wrong or if I feel alright or if there’s anything at all that I feel needs to be talked about. My usual reply would be no but internally I’d be enjoying the warmth of her presence and even hoping for a silly reason to annoy her. Sometimes I succeed and at the end of our frivolous disagreement, we laugh it out. Because that’s what she and I are like. She is my mother and friend and I am her pesky little child.

As a 7 year old, when I received a new set of colour pencils and boldly decided to draw a portrait, the model I chose was Achan. When I was 14, for writing, as part of my English project, a poem on the person with the biggest influence on me, the one I chose was Achan. I remember showing it to Amma afterwards. She asked me to write something about her and I said ‘Sure, but just not now. I have this project to finish’. And I still haven’t fulfilled her wish. So this is for Amma, the omnipresent guiding force in my life, the epitome of perennial love, and my unfailing crying shoulder.

Amma is a word that resonates a lot of feelings. Feelings that are too hard to put in proper words. Feelings that I’ve had since I was born or, if it is possible, even before that. Amma is synonymous with not just the elevated feelings of love, care, sympathy, empathy, sacrifice etc. The thought of her can be found in things that are so fundamentally quotidian as well, such as hunger. I know the first thing I think about while eating the incredibly tasteless mess food, which can only be passed off as ‘edible’, is Amma’s food. Amma is that all encompassing emotion and a miracle in the shape of a human being.

I know a little over a thousand words can’t even be a proper acknowledgement of Amma’s unfaltering love and care. But then again, nothing I do will ever be equivalent to what she has done, and continues to do for me. For there is nothing greater than being a mother and nothing so profoundly beautiful as the love of a mother. And so, I stop here.

I swear in the name of everything you’ve done for me and on the tears that are now flooding up in my eyes, I love you, Amma.