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A few weeks ago I found an old, faded photograph of my mother. Strangely, I did not quite recognise the woman I was looking at. She was young, shy in a very coy way, jumping down a small rock, relaxed and so...not maa.
I asked my father to send some more pictures of her and spent a few hours just looking at her. A photo stood out.
People always said I take after her, but I never put much thought into it. But in this photo of her, when she was not too young and not too old, and the stresses hadn’t quite creeped in, I can see myself clearly. We have the exact same eyes. Looking at the photo feels surreal after a while.
I also chose this photo because I don’t remember the last time she smiled like this for one. She’s laid-back, sunny and she even kept her hair open, which she stopped doing more than ten years ago because it ‘looked untidy’. Needless to say, since then she’s toughened up and also aged. She’s broken many glass ceilings in the last two decades as an officer in the Indian Railways and has been an indispensable wife and mother.
Her eyes drew me in. I may not know the woman she was before she had me, but I instantly recognised the woman who would raise me to become the woman I am.
Like many girls of her generation, Arun Nair’s mother got married at twenty-one to a man she had never met before. She began her married life with 'simple' expectations: "I'm going to have kids. I'm going to be the best mother and homemaker in the world". She's been doing that for 44 years now, “with the efficiency of a world class logistics manager and the devotion that only a mother can bring,” testifies Arun.
Garima Poonia thought her mom always had short hair. Until she found this picture of her with beautiful, long hair just like she wanted growing up. She wondered what happened.
Garima recently got her hair chopped off. For her, it was a liberating choice but coming across the photo made her realise her mother didn't have one. After a strenuous labour and complicated delivery, she had become weak. He hair had begun falling; everyday in the shower, every time she ran her hand through them.“She couldn't take care of me and manage her hair, so she decided to cut them off.”
Meghna Chaudhury’s mother was raised in a very protective, traditional household, as most of our mothers were. She was raised with orthodox ideas of how women are supposed to be and that was her entire worldview. She diligently lived according to society’s expectations.
For Anurit Kanti, it was a trendy sepia-toned picture of his mother which caught his eye. She’s dressed in a casual white T-shirt, retro white earrings, oversized sunglasses and a perfect smile. He barely recognised her, and yet seeing her smile without a single care was a simple form of catharsis for him.
Aviral Virk came across this photograph of her mother taken at a park in Dhaula Kuan when she gone for a picnic with her parents and two college friends. Her mother is sitting cross-legged with a ear-to-ear smile, almost suppressing a cheeky laugh, eyes closed and with her sandals in her hands above her head. It’s the playfulness of the photo that draws you in and holds you, like you’ll be let in on an inside joke any minute.
Shaleen Wadhwana’s mother got married when she was 24. In her initial years as a wife, she stayed in a small town of Madhya Pradesh, miles apart from her urban life in Delhi. As the children grew up and time passed, she explored more avenues of her leadership skills and charitable leanings. The photo marks the start of her mother’s journey from being a timid woman of 24 to a well-respected businesswoman and philanthropist all while giving Shaleen the best life she could.
Looking through old photos of my mother, I felt nostalgia for happier times in which I didn’t even exist; intrigue about her, so different from the woman I know; a connection when I saw a resemblance and confusion when I didn’t.
But mostly, it made her more of her own person, outside of being my family’s absolute rock. So, on this Mother’s Day, here’s looking at you, maa.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)