maa – think twice nish

“Maa, I had a bad day, please keep the food and bed ready. Will just eat and sleep”

“Okay beta,”

As I hung up the call I realized how I would call her to get things while returning home from office. How she for all the years of her work life, never had a call back home saying what I just did. As I reached home, I hugged Maa and said “How did you manage work and yet manage us and all the other family drama so smoothly?”

“You have more to see in the world. Come have dinner, it will get cold”

I don’t remember a time I ever felt any joy for food. But she always feels the joy to cook for me in a hope that I’ll eat with the same joy.

This is being hopeful for two decades straight without any positive output! To me this is an epitome of being hopeful in life. How do you manage to have hope in such a hopeless child like me?

My sister posted that she went to Bondi beach in Australia.

“I’ll ask her boondi beach gayi hai, laddoo beach kab jayegi”

This is the kind of humour my mom has always had. This was a dig at my sister but more often than not the jokes are two fold, punching me right in the face and making herself laugh if not anyone else!

I think this is how she gets back at me for not eating. But her jokes have also managed to lighten my mood at times when all I wish to do is nag and cry.

“Mom I need some coffee”

“I am watching Kiran the Knitter’s new video, in 5 mins I’ll give”

The above mentioned youtuber is one of my mom’s favourite. She keeps learning new knitting skills online. Instead from the time she is been introduced to youtube there hasn’t been a day for her without learning something new in areas of her interest like knitting and cooking.

Mom has a root desire to do her bit no matter what. In any situation, under any circumstance she always thinks of the other before her. How? Maa is the kind of person who would get beaten all over and still offer the person some food, yes food because its mom after all!

I have only observed Maa, I am yet to learn how she manages to remain sane amidst the chaos around. I’ll try my best at adapting some poor joke skill as well. I have definitely inherited the learning wheel from her. I am trying to become more selfless. I am hopeful to learn all this and more. And my hopes won’t die, learned that for sure!

This is my last post in the series “Things I learned from…” I hope this and each post gave you some learning too 🙂

‘Is this your first flight ever?’

‘Yes’

‘Yay!’ and the two girls continued some happy murmurs.

‘Why? What happened?’

‘It is also our first flight experiences ever!’

I smiled. ‘Wow! This will be beautiful’ I said to myself.

It was only a day back I had returned from the Manali Camp when I met these two girls for our train to Jammu. I was trying my best to get out of the beautiful Manali experience and make some space in my mind for new Ladakh memories. After this first conversation about having our first flight experiences together, I got even more excited to end the two day train journey to reach Jammu for our flight to Leh.

I was tired from the Manali trip, my mind wished to talk to them but my body just dozed of the entire two day travel. I still feel guilty for the night I slept and both of them took turns to look after our bags. When we finally reached Jammu late night, I decided to make up for it. We talked the entire night and for me there couldn’t be a better night before my first flight because now I wouldn’t be travelling with two girls, but two friends- Samina and Malina.

We reached the Jammu Airport at 5:30am which meant we had another two hours of waiting before we would be taken inside the Airport. When we finally got in we were hungry and sleep deprived. Luckily there was a box of food given with the Boarding Pass.

When I returned from the final bag check and realized it was only few minutes before my first flight something shook me inside. The box in my hand was getting wet, my new found friends were getting tensed, I had no clue why but I couldn’t stop crying.

‘What happened?’ both asked one after another. I couldn’t say anything.

I gulped some saliva and said, ‘I’ll be fine by the time we land. Let me be’

‘Sure?’ both echoed

‘Yes’ I nodded.

From January, when I booked the plane tickets, I was waiting for this day. A flashback of all the difficulties Maa faced to get the money and everything else sorted for this trip made me cringe. My Manali trip was overwhelming and I couldn’t believe Ladakh trip is yet to unfold. Everything was too good to be true. My mind had chaos of thoughts which kept pouring through my eyes. I decided to pen every thought down when I get to my seat in the plane.

I had a window seat and so did Samina and Malina as we had booked them early. I put my seat belt and did stream of consciousness writing till the flight begin. The sight from the window made me smile and the chaos in my mind disappear.

IMG_20170522_094921807 — The snow-capped mountains are the peaks I need to achieve for myself and Maa, the sky is the kind of endless efforts I’ll require to do so and the clouds are like constant support I have from Maa and my friends for everything.

As soon as I got down from the flight, I hugged Samina tight. I turned and hugged Malina too. We had a small group hug and went to get our bags. I couldn’t utter a word but I was ready to explore as my mind managed to create a new folder for Ladakh memories.

Tag: maa

Things I learned from Maa

My First Flight