Summer, Children & Mothers.
Summer vacations have started but for some, it’s still around the corner. I can feel that sense of peace and a sigh of relief my little sister has taken every time she goes to bed for the past few days now.
The sense of calm in her mind when she doesn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night, just to check her alarm on her tomboyish little watch. I am not sexist, but that’s what I heard from a person when she wore it for the first time but she couldn’t care less. Now, I am not sure if there is any theory for her ignorance but I would like to start with one it’s because — her mother bought that watch for her.
That’s it, that’s the theory. I have always believed that a child needs nothing more than their mother’s validation. It is indeed love and that too an unconditional one. But it also gives the child a sense of carelessness, that they don’t have to think about what others are thinking because, for them, their mother knows best.
But I was talking about vacations, they start in mid-May and mostly end in the first week of July. This whole period of approximately 2 months has its ups and downs.
The struggle that mothers face is the rebellion that suddenly enters every child’s blood. The parks are always filled even in the scorching heat of the sun. Kids have to be dragged home from the grounds to take a bath because that’s what their clothes need more than their bodies.
Mothers cleaning the living room floors. All those promises made by parents especially mothers to send their kids to school camps to learn new skills and kids assuring that they will behave this summer in the last PTM before the vacation starts goes down the flush as soon as Dad comes home flashing a ticket to grandma’s home.
I feel bad for my sister because she doesn’t get to enjoy those summers in the village. Trailing cows and eating mangoes on the way home despite knowing that Dadi is sitting with a bucket at the front door. But instead of dropping the mangoes in the bucket she pours the whole water in the bucket on the hooligans with muddy clothes.
I feel bad for Maa now that she has to handle all of us on her own. And that my little sister can’t escape the scoldings for the entire summer as we used to just because of the leverage of being at Dadi’s home.
Summers are not only holiday homework, playing games, and eating ice cream season but they are also getting scolded for not doing homework soon enough, getting into fights with our mothers for not letting us play all day as Bhoomi’s mother does, and then catching cold because of all that ice cream we stole.
But apart from all this one thing that we don’t realize soon enough is that they are the only precious moments when we bond with our mother’s the most.
Yes, we have another parent too but I heard this beautiful line by Richa Anirudh today on the radio, “Hum kisi ke saath kitna bhi waqt kyu na guzaar le lekin Maa ke saath humara guzara hua waqt humesha usase 9 mahine aage hi rahega” (No matter how much time we spend with someone, the time we spend with our mothers is always going to be 9 months ahead from that time).
There are many anecdotes from my childhood that I can share right now and have a laugh after remembering them to write but some things should be left for the next time. After all, we have many Mother’s days yet to come.
P.S. — Hey, it’s been a while. There is no productive reason though. I have been lazy with no inspiration, no emotions flowing in my veins, and leaving things halfway through but I am trying one day at a time and I hope that this piece will help me make peace with my speed. I’ll be writing soon, till then have a nice day and wish your mothers a very HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY from my side, bie.
