“I felt proud then. Now I feel only embarrassment, especially when you bring it up and try to show me off to your friends.”
“Could you talk some more about these feelings?”
“There is nothing more to say. You embarrass me when you bring up my record in Athletics. Khatam* story.”
But I needed more… on the moments that led to the pride, and then those that led to the embarrassment? I wasn’t Proust, dammit!
Then she asked, “You remember Mankapur stadium?”
Yes, I remembered. A small group of students from my daughter’s school were trudging out of the stadium, accompanied by their sports teacher. My daughter, flushed, slouching, had a half-smile on her face. The smile of a jubilant 11-year-old trying to look cool and indifferent. The teacher looked pleased as punch.
“Mummy, I made it in 11.25s. Journalists were waiting to interview me at the finish line. This is the first time that I have been interviewed. It felt so weird! They asked me how I felt. I didn’t know what to say.”
The teacher informed me then that Setareh had broken a national record in the 100-meter race. These were the semi-finals. She would have to come back for the finals later on in the day.
I remember hugging my daughter warmly. I remember taking her home for lunch on my scooter. I remember suggesting she pursue athletics instead of tennis if she so desired. I also remember our building sweeper Babita coming up to tell me the next morning, “Sitara ko dekha, UCN TV pey. Uska interview ley rahein they.” (I saw Setareh on UCN TV. They were interviewing her).
“Yes. I felt great then. The Principal called me to her office and congratulated me.”
I don’t know who felt prouder – my daughter or I. I was both proud and loud. The universe would soon know what my Jhingoo* was capable of. Her bullies would be silenced. She had broken the 100-meter record of the national champion. Google informed me that the national champ had done it in 11.29s. My own champ was one up on her.
Hadn’t I first noticed how she climbed before she walked? ‘A born athlete’, was how I introduced her to my friends. As she grew, we took to calling her Jhingoo for her capacity to spring up like a shrimp at the hint of danger or excitement. When she demonstrated her ability to leave a trail of atmospheric and material disruptions wherever she went, we gave her a new name, ‘Vavajodu’* (Vavajodu for the cyclone in Gujarati). Through all the baptisms and intros and tornados, I never stopped feeling proud of the apple of my eye.
My shrimp did not get a ranking in the finals. It didn’t matter. I knew she had potential. I let her decide. She finally quit tennis and moved to athletics of her own free will. There was no hurrying her!
Rajan Sir at Mankapur Stadium was a stern coach and a kind human being. He was surprised when his new trainee rejected all his suggestions. Eat almonds. I don’t like almonds. Eat bananas. I don’t eat bananas. Avoid sandwiches for dinner. I love sandwiches. Why not do some jogging in the mornings? I can’t get up early.
“He was kind to me Mummy. But I was confused. I was not sure if I wanted to continue doing athletics in Nagpur”.
My little Jhingoo was growing up. She needed her space. She needed to break free of expectations. By the time she hit 13, I had a pucka rebel on my hands.
Both the pandemic and my dreams (of having a star athlete for a daughter) bit the dust at around the same time. My little shrimp, my turbulent cyclone had become a quiet, indolent, BBC Earth-watching, IG scrolling, chip-n-chocolate munching, Manga-devouring teen.
Cut to February 2024. She asked me if I could help her improve her diet. She wanted to become a badminton player. Of course, I could. What are Mommy’s for? (sentences ending with prepositions be damned!)
I soldiered on. As my mother did before me. And her mother before her.
***
“It is painfully embarrassing when you now talk of my achievements as if they are yours”!
“I am not here to fulfill your ambitions”.
“I HATE STUDIES”.
“STOP IT. I am embarrassed. I did that course in Free Lance Journalism when I was fifteen. It was just a correspondence course. I don’t want to become a journalist or a writer now. Stop tom tomming about it.”
My mother never stopped. But I stopped. I stopped the Ph.D. mid-research. I stopped the memoir mid-book. I never reached the heights she dreamt up for me. She saw me hit rock bottom – a mother’s worst nightmare!
A couple of years before my mom passed away, we spoke again. Of past hurts and unrealized dreams, of lost illusions and misplaced ambitions. We were both wrong. We both needed success. Each other’s and our own. We both needed each other.
When I, at 53, asked her what she, now in her twilight years, most wanted from life, her reply was what I most wanted to hear: “Your success”. Helpless, frail, bedridden – my mother pronounced “success” as she would “happiness”. She wanted to see me not give up on my natural endowments. She wanted to see me independent, free, strong, alive, and happy. She was now dreaming not FOR me, but WITH me. She would soon leave me. But her will and spirit would stay with me, keeping me going through illness and disappointment, alone but determined to do the best I could with what I had.
***
“I get it, baby. I am so sorry! Please forgive me. I won’t mention the record again.”
“It’s okay Mom.”
“Is that why you dropped out of athletics? Because you were fed up with me bringing up your record?”
“Naah! That’s ridiculous. Credit me with more intelligence than that! That was entirely my choice.”
As they say, Khatam story!
Khatam – Hindi for “finished, over, concluded”
Jhingoo – Gujarati for “Shrimp, prawn”