Mother - Part 2

Part 1 is here.

So began the next stage of her adventure. She bought this house and her family joined her once she received possession. My uncle was still in college then and he came to Bombay and joined XIth in one of the colleges close to home. My mother obviously funded his education all through college. One of the big advantages of the house was that it was much closer to work and so travelling to work for her became much easier. Money was still fairly tight as she had her house loan to pay off, along with all the other household expenditure. Yet the big difference now was that they had a secure roof over their head and the means to have regular meals.

Slowly but surely, my grandmother started prodding her about marriage. By this time, she was fairly well known back in the village where she came from and also within our community and so there were no dearth of proposals. One of the big problems was that my grandparents did not know anybody in our community living in Bombay and so anyone agreeing to the match would have to move to Bombay. Such a move was a bit tricky in those times because it meant breaking away from tradition, in a society where the girl traditionally went to live with the boy. So though from a work opportunity point of view, it was more attractive, from a cultural point of view, it was hard getting someone to agree to those terms.

They found my dad’s proposal through some common friends. To his credit, my father, a commerce graduate left his tiny little village and came to Bombay after they were married without a job in hand. Again it may not be a big deal now, but in those times it certainly was. He came to Bombay to live with my mother, her parents and brother in the house that she owned. I certainly don’t know his reasons to date – my father is not the sort of person who will talk about such things and I certainly don’t have the skill to elicit such information from him. He came, settled down and soon found a job in a bank, which matched his education quite closely. He walked to work, could come home for lunch everyday and had quite a peaceful life. He got quite close to my uncle, but never liked my grandparents very much from the start. He always thought that my grandparents were very lazy and that they were taking advantage of my mother.

Anyway life continued and my uncle joined a 2-year bachelor’s course in Science, quite disappointed that he had not managed to get into medicine. However, after finishing an year, he decided to apply for medicine again and managed to get through this time. My mother was very supportive of his decision, paid for his medical degree and pretty much let him do whatever he pleased.

My sister was born in the midst of my uncle’s medical degree and became his favourite niece, which she is to this day. Because my grandparents lived with my mother, she worked almost through the end. Maternity leave was not so generous during those days and so my mother had to go back to work quite soon after. Fortunately, she had a good support system at home.

After finishing off his medical degree, my uncle worked as a lecturer in one of the medical colleges in Bombay for about an year or so. One of his friends told him about doctor’s jobs in the UK, applied for one and got one. My uncle left for UK in December 1976, with my mother paying a substantial part of his airfare, visa fees etc. He regularly came back for visits and my mother started looking around for a match for him too. Not once did he protest, but went along with it and saw a lot of girls, always finding some excuse. In spite of this, my mother persevered and arranged for him to meet girls every year that he came down. Guess he had a good reason, if only he had told my mother about it.

My brother and I were born (in that order) after my uncle left for the UK. My father wasn’t too happy with my birth, at the fact that it was another girl and a dark one at that !! Just after my brother was born, my parents moved to the campus where my mother worked. I think this was one of the best decisions they ever made. The colony (at least in those days, not any more) was green, spacious, serene, calm, peaceful and was the perfect place to grow up for us children. Our school was a stone’s throw away from our house, we had great friends growing up and it was just such a protective, unspoilt perfect environment.

I will never forget that day on a summer evening when I came back home after playing downstairs to find my grandparents and mother crying in the presence of two ladies whom I had not met before and a child at home. There was a sense of urgency in my mother’s voice as she asked me to go and look for my brother and sister, who were playing downstairs and bring them home. Just as I was about to leave, my grandma told me that my mama had married without our knowledge and I remember asking if my uncle had married both of them !!

We later found out that my uncle had married my aunt before he left for the UK, without saying a word to anybody at home. My aunt had even visited my house just before she left for the UK to join my uncle as a friend of my uncle’s, offering to carry foodstuffs and other knick-knacks for him, without anybody at home suspecting anything. What I found disturbing then and still do is the fact that not only did my uncle not have the decency to confide in my mother or tell her soon after the wedding, he only told them after my cousin was born (a good 6 years after his wedding and over an year after my cousin’s birth). I don’t think my mother has ever forgiven my uncle for not giving her a chance and rightly so too. My mother is fairly liberal and modern and I am positive that she would have spoken to my grandparents about it to convince them. My uncle was probably paranoid that the family would not accept my aunt because she was a Christian, but then he never gave my mother a chance. Don’t get me wrong – my aunt is a wonderful lady, gets on very well with the family but my uncle showed his spineless self then and I don’t think my mother can ever forget that episode (and rightly so too), though she has definitely forgiven him. My father, on the other hand, never forgave my uncle and their relationship went from them being really close to one of formality.

Yet the thing which strikes me most is the difference in attitudes which can manifest in people irrespective of the same circumstances, upbringing, and parenting. My mother talks about her bad days, yet she never feels sorry for herself or her situation. She takes courage from the fact that she has overcome all that to be where she is now. But my uncle, on the other hand, constantly moans about how he had just 2 pairs of shirts and 2 trousers during his childhood and how he never had enough money. He never loses a chance to talk about it to anyone willing to listen. And almost as if to make up for it, he buys clothes like there is no tomorrow. At last count, he had more than 35 unused shirts in his wardrobe, yet he cannot stop buying. It has almost become an addiction. He moans and moans about how overworked he is and how underpaid he is, which is a big joke considering that he is a GP in this country (who have such a sweet deal that I cannot believe that he is complaining). That’s just two examples – I can give millions more.

More in the next post.