A heartfelt tribute to my mother...

About Me

My name is Sheela and I currently live in Chennai with my family. This tribute is for my mother. Before I start I would like to thank ChillZee.in for providing me an opportunity to write this about my mother. Thanks a lot chillzee! I really mean it.

I have two elder brothers and an elder sister. When I think about my mother, my heart fills with love and gratitude. I am what I am today mainly because of the sacrifices and pains accepted by my mother.

My Mother

My mother's name is Swarnabai and she was born in Arumanai a small village in Nagercoil. My mother has one elder brother, one younger brother and one younger sister. Since it was difficult for my grandparents to manage the big family, my mother and her elder brother were taken care by her grandparents i.e. my great grandparents.

In those days it's difficult to earn few bucks even though you work very hard. The main job of my great grandfather was to climb the Palm tree and prepare "Pathaneer" (a sweet drink made from the flower of the palm tree). One can’t earn much from this profession. So poverty and difficulties continued all along. But my great grandparents insisted on my mother's education and helped her complete SSLC. This by itself is a great achievement considering the family's financial situation and the village's culture.

After completing SSLC, my mother stayed at home and would help her grandmother in normal household chores. Really speaking since my mother had completed SSLC, she could have easily got a good job, but since she can't travel far she was not able to do it... Yes, my mother is a physically handicapped person. One of her foot is a bit bend... some sort of polio attack...

After Marriage...

And then she was married to my father S. Harris in 1969. My father was a laborer who had to work very hard to earn small income. Also the job is not very stable... he will have job one day and no job the other day and so on... So it was the same poverty story even after her marriage... We used to find it difficult even to get our daily food. My father tried his hands in doing agriculture for a while. My mother used to help him in his work. But unfortunately, because of the irate weather conditions it didn't come up well.

Meanwhile we all came back to my mother's birth place Arumanai. We all used to walk more than 8KMs to go to our school. Not only my mother even we four used to study using the small chimney lamp. And it was obviously hard to manage food + education of our six member family just with my father’s income.

So my mother started working to share the family burden with my father and make sure that our education doesn’t suffer because of our family’s financial condition. My mother got job as noon meals assistant (sathunavu ayya) in the nearby government higher secondary school. Her monthly salary was Rs.30/-. Since my parents were not able to afford our bus expenses and since they didn't want us to walk all alone so long, we also shifted to the same school where my mother worked.

Obviously it will be painful for her to walk such a long distance to work and do those chores... We all can also feel the pain but we were not able to do anything... Since we were not financially strong, we were not able make her undergo any treatment also.

After my mother started working our difficulties started to slowly reduce. My father also joined a big grocery shop... Though my mother was brought up in a poor family, she knows how to save. She used to save even a single penny... I can’t remember her spending even a single penny unnecessarily or for her own well being... With the joint effort of my mother and father ... and with my mother's saving habit.... my parents saved money little by little and made sure that we are married and settled on time. Of course it's not an easy thing to get two of your daughters married on time in the Nagercoil region.

Tribute

My mother forgot about her pain and comfort just to make sure that we get good education and are settled in life. Right from her youthful days to today, she has done everything just for her children. Of course she has achieved whatever she really wanted... We all four are happy now and obviously that’s only because of her....

Thinking about it now... I just can't understand how I can repay the pain and effort my mother put to make my life better... I love you mother.

I can write pages and pages about my father and mother but I am just making it short and stopping it here... One small suggestion to whomever reading this... Please show affection to your parents... Think how much they suffer and bear just for your well being... We can only repay them with our love and nothing else....

Thanks ChillZee.in again for the opportunity.