“Hey I no more want a mobile”   I was surprised to hear  this…

With a sigh of relief I walked to her…Till yesterday she was so eagerly waiting for the new mobile

“…instead get me a celltop” she resumed…

“Oh God…whats this new “celltop” But how come she came to about celltop ??  I wondered

Simple it is.. she is smiling and fliping over the pages of The Hindu.

Wait a second, the protagonist here is my “amma”..

She ,who took me to the threshold of anything and everything,and my first blog ever, is about her..She is my strength,my weakness too…She who taught me that words can hurt as well as heal …Knowingly or unknowingly you have once more taken me to the entrance of a new world ,the world of blogging…
She is now enjoying the wonderful,life long vacation of retirement after her 30plus years of service working with  Kerala University..(Previously she proudly introduced herself as an employee of this prestigious institution,these days ,the next moment she lets anyone know that she worked with Universsity,she would not fail to add the information that she had retired two years back..all because of the controversies that strike newspaper these days!!!!)

I had a fear whether she would remain lazy at home after her retirement ( rather  addicted to serials!!!!…) .To my surprise, she joined a computer centre and mastered the basics and even started using internet.  This was two-years back..Those days we used our system at specific “time slots”…While doing  her hands- on homework, she would call me and ask ” do you know  to do that in excel?” I would   say “no”. She would then patiently teach me the same, as she has always done from the day I was born, Mothers are excellent teachers without doubt..

A couple of weeks back… she told me “I need to get some books” ..Books are her dearest  friends, could  range from the  sacred Bhagavatham  to Jeffrey Archer’s Prison Diary ,anything for that matter…I thought of  getting them from the library.(My Amma and  valyamma are voracious readers and they read all the books I take from the library and not me?…).Every time when we prepare for a journey,a dilemma hits me..I cannot find a book for her (to read during the journey),she has almost finished reading the collection of books we have.But this time it was something else… books  that can teach her  south Indian languages. Later, I got 2 books for her” learn Tamil and Kannada in 4 weeks”….Believe me,  her face was beaming with joy …For a split second  it struck to me ,years ago she used to bring story books for me and now its my turn…

Several such incidents  recur in life ..Years before ,I   used to    wait for the clock to tick 5.45 in the evening to see her coming from the office…There were days when I would end up crying and my muthassi consoling me,  if amma happens to be a little late..Now it’s the same situation with amma eagerly waiting for me..If someday I happen to be late and haven’t informed her ,she will be in front of Lord Guruvayurappan ,praying for sure…

So ,Our favorite pastime these days is learning the new language..together ..She has lived another childhood, teenage, a whole new life along with me…Whatever marks I  scored, whichever prizes I won, whenever I got scolding, they were never just mine, rather it was ‘ours’….She is a multi-faceted wonder, as a daughter, sister, wife, friend, subordinate, superior and last but not the least as a “mother”. She has made me feel that a mother’s love would be unconditional, selfless and endless .Its never ephemeral like a firefly’s light but  an eternal feeling, in this world, where almost every other relation come with a flavor of give and take.

Hats off to the most wonderful person in my life, my mother.

And a salute to all mothers too:)