Butterflies and Hurricanes

She’s a scatterbrain. She really is. She buys so many shoes that she often forgets about the new pair she’d bought recently, until she finds them months later, unknowingly, hidden somewhere in the deep recesses of one of her wardrobes. She hoards everything, from plastic boxes, to clothes that no one would ever wear again, to things that don’t make sense to anyone else but her.

She’s a laughter riot. She can stand in front of the mirror, wear an imaginary lehenga, sing a Shilpa Shetty number in her head, and dance to entertain herself. She talks in a made-up language to me in public (‘Honolulu ki bhasha’), to confuse others, and then laughs like crazy. She’s sometimes found standing in front of the fridge in utter darkness, sneakily gorging on laddoos we got during Diwali.

She invents so many new words so often, we’ve actually had to make a list of all the words she comes up with. She makes faces at people when they’re not looking, sleeps with the TV on, pretends she’s dead to scare her children, often stares off into space, and is a newly-turned online shopping addict.

She doesn’t depend on anybody. Never has, never had to. She’s fiercely independent, annoyingly righteous, amazingly giving, and astonishingly hard-working.

If you haven’t guessed who I’m talking about, (because it’s not the most obvious thing in the world), I’m talking about my mom. She’s had a full-time, 6-days-a-week job all her life, and somehow she has managed to raise three kids, take care of a house, and handle relationships with all the relatives in our crazy joint family. It’s obviously not been easy. From waking us up at 6 (which itself was the ultimate test in patience and persistence), to packing our lunch-boxes, to dressing us up, to getting ready herself, coming back and helping us with our homework, to serving dinner, I honestly don’t understand how she did all of it, for all these years.

My mom isn’t elegant. She isn’t ‘dainty’, or ‘sophisticated’ or ‘sanskaari’. And I’m so happy she isn’t. Because she’s more than these things. She’s intelligent, she’s sensible, she’s honest, she’s tough. We never have to hide anything from her, because she listens, and understands, and appreciates. She may have not kept the house as clean and as perfect as moms are expected to, but she has filled the house with laughter, and warmth and love. She never learnt how to cook before she got married. Because she was busy reading books, and working hard, and making money, and earning a living. She may be a mad woman who sits sloppily in her bed eating musk melon seeds at night, but the next morning, she radiates with a fresh coat of dark red lipstick on her lips. She’s everything I wanted in a mom, and more.

I love her for all the reasons anybody would love their moms, but I love her also because she’s a wonderful human being. If I’d met her as a person, maybe in school or college, I would have instantly befriended her. I would have gone and said ‘hi’ in the library when she’d be sitting with her nose deep inside a book. I’m so happy she’s a crazy lady, because her madness, her passion, and her utter randomness has passed on to me, to be carried on to future generations (through my sister, if not through me). I’m incredibly happy to be a younger, skinnier version of her.

She did not just make me; she made me who I am today. And I happen to like the way I turned out to be. Thank you Ma, for everything. For being you. And for all the times you made us realize that it’s okay to be different. If you could do it then, we can do it now.

Cheers to the crazy in us!