Amma...Jeejukutti!

I have always wondered why we award a person posthumously. Just how does it matter? All commendations and appreciations, I truly believe, must come in when the person is alive and is in a condition to rejoice the attention and accolades. This lingering thought went on until I was looking at the blogs that I had written. For people as close as my father or father-in-law, I was never able to tell them what they meant to me or the family, when they were alive. It has always been discussions and debates with them without giving them any credit for all their struggle in making our families. So, I thought, at least I will refrain from making these “posthumous credits” for my surviving mother and mother-in-law. Two women who have made me the person I am today in their own ways.

First about my mother…and in a different sequel post about my mother-in-law.

How many times have you come across a not-so-well-to-do family’s 5^th or 6^th child being a star and an enterprising character wherever he/she goes? That too, in the previous generations, a girl/woman being a star in a normal middle-class TamBrahm family has been a rarity. She was born the 5^th of the 8 siblings. Her mom did not want her and hence did not bother to christen her. Her dad was a charismatic, different thinking, army man. He rejoiced the birth of every child of his and this one was no different for him. He christened her Jeeja Bai in respect of our national hero Shivaji’s mother who made Shivaji immortal. He raised her more like a boy.

At the age of 5, when she went to school, she failed in some subjects. But she came home cheering that she was the “one & only” failure in her class. Her father did not chide her. Instead he saw in her the rearing to be the “one & only”. So, he adviced her on what failure meant. That was the last time she took pride in being a failure. No looking back! Whatever she did from there on – she was definitely the “one & only” to show that kind of a roaring result. Be it academics, sports, dancing, singing, composing, handling her large family when her father was deputed to the war front, raising her husband’s (yet another large family) when she got married as the first daughter-in-law of the house…She has shown how to excel in each of the tasks that she took up. All this not by being aggressive but by being assertive and caring.

She has been the pillar of support for men like my grandfather or my own father in times of crisis. She has proven many a times that she is a born leader. Episodes in her younger days where she has taken rapid decisions regarding her own brothers or sisters, are testimony to her leadership abilities. Now, one may ask, what is the big deal deciding for one’s own siblings? That is where she was different.

From a “not-so-well-to-do” family she was married off to a “not-at-all-well-to-do” one. That poverty struck her the day she entered my father’s house. Without a question, she gave away her jewels to her hubby and asked him to pledge all that and fund the family for their feed!!! Not just a question of magnanimity but also that decision-making skill. She had given up a wonderful job as a Central Govt Officer to marry my father only to start hunting for jobs post marriage. She landed only in mean jobs – like a clerk or a teacher – which fetched her meagerly. In her own words, even that was a big relief for that family of 9!

My father was the oldest of 6 siblings with aged parents. So, without any question, the family baton of responsibilities was on him. He accepted willingly and more than him was my mom on his side. She never ever thought of her own siblings or parents from the day she became Mrs. Jeeja Bai. This continued until my father passed away. Her vision was so aligned with my father’s! She was instrumental in getting his family of 6 settling down in jobs, getting his sisters married off and then for all the rituals that follow after the sisters are married off, taking very good care of her parents-in-law…all this on top of her own 3 children who she wanted in English Medium schools no matter what that meant monetarily. She earned through extra tuitions to fund for her childrens’ education in English Medium.

Hardly have we seen her remain in a bad mood. All of us get our mood swings. All of us get enraged with situations or people. But the attitude of not keeping all this in mind all the time and not allowing negative energy to persist was one of her best traits.

I can go on and on about this amazing woman who I call my mother. But in one post to cover all her greatness would be gross injustice to a leader and a mother like her. There will be follow-up sequels to this post but each one covering just one episode which will have valuable lessons to women of any age. So until the next one…signing off!