Time was a year back 6th of May 2020 . The conversation went …
Me (on a call with my mother) : “Sorry Ma couldn’t get you anything for the birthday this year . With Covid-19 all around just don’t know if its safe.
Ma : ” Don’t worry , its okay , your call is more than a present . We can always celebrate next year”
As a science student , an engineer and a supply chain professional , i am used to take a couple of assumptions as possible how much ever improbable and discarding some as not a realistic option. In my wildest dream i honestly never thought that would be the last time i would wish my mother (67 yrs age) a happy birthday. It was some of those cases which not only did i think improbable but technically impossible. That is probably a good example where logic fails some times …… proving that something or someone is out there that has the ability or capability to churn the life and human logic far beyond our contemplation.
Some people say when a child comes to this world , he/she is a blank sheet of paper or a piece of wet clay. As the adult train them to differentiate between good and bad , the blank paper starts to get filled / the clay starts getting molded .At the beginning of the life those writing on papers are probably with pencil which can be erased by an eraser and the clay can be re-molded, but the parents have a tiring job of helping the kind fill the paper again or remodel the clay in the right form. Through the ages , these writings tend to convert into ink instead of pencil lead and the clays start getting hard to get permanent structures.
My parents taught me a lot of nice things tirelessly including loving , respecting others irrespective of the dress they wear, the food they eat , the money in there wallet . Many of those teachings I would want to believe has made me a person i am today .
Of all those things they taught me , one tiny thing that i got used to was to celebrate small things. There was a time in our life where we had barely enough to make our ends meet (baba was doing his PhD and ma ate skins of vegetables so that i get to eat the best available) . Irrespective of that she taught me to celebrate with what ever little we had . There were no expensive gifts but there was the feeling of celebration which got smiles onto my face … there was feeling of being loved and wanted.
In an age where materialism ( read consumerism) seems to be the key to win everything , this was a very different teaching which got sketched into my life and got molded into part of what i am today . As John Keats once said …
The poetry of earth is never dead
if Ma would have been alive today (and i so hope that it was true today ) , she would have turned 68 , but the mighty had very different plans to celebrate her birthday . Death is just a new beginning with a merger of soul with the Brahmana. To say it differently , the soul lives on. So what prevents us from wishing the soul a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY and may be celebrate it a bit ?
Where ever you are i do hope you have a lovely day . A very Happy Birthday Ma
