Saturday, 24 October 2009

I can make tea anytime . . .

Today while sitting and lazing after breakfast, my mom told me something that sounded very sweet but at the same time explained a lot of unexplained dreams and small wishes. My mom was married off quite early at the age of 16. She aspired to study but then her mother did not want that. My mother got married and moved to Bombay from our native place. My mother told me that initially after she got married, she sensed a freedom which was previously absent. She remarked, "I thought, I can make tea anytime and have since I was the one who was making it." This thought of hers triggered a series of thoughts and talks. My mother told me how the excitement of making tea for herself anytime made her feel good. There was a certain freedom that she anticipated. In comparison to her mother's place where her mother was in charge, she was in charge when she was married.

Many of us have these small pockets of freedom which we relish even though in the larger framework, these seem quite insignificant. We always think that we will be free when we are educated, live in a place which is our own, when we are married . . . But then these are instances where we postpone our freedom and eventually we realise we are never free. My mom did make tea whenever she wanted to but then looking at it  from a wider angle - she could never study. She was a mother at an age when girls are in the final year of their under graduation. She does regret that she was never able to study but then a cuppa tea keeps her happy. 


Sometimes its the smaller things that are very insignificant to others that make us happy and content. The purpose of this post is very hazy to me -- Is it freedom, small desires . . .

6 comments:

  1. This reminds me of the quote:

    "Think big thoughts but relinquish small pleasures."

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  2. Sameera: Yes. But then I always think my mother has a lot of wishes like that which were never fulfilled.

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  3. I think this is one of my favourite posts here.

    Y'know, sometimes I think, freedom is very subjective..I think its liberating that I can wear a short skirt and order a vodka on the rocks in a swanky club when I go out with my friends..but a woman in say, Miami, barely spares a thought about it when she does the same thing..

    on the other hand, Pramod Muthalik wud prolly think I was a moral degenerate..I think his idea of freedom wud be allowing a woman to get a job. Period.

    So you see, freedom can be a lot of different things.

    And yeah, it is all the small things. :)

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  4. beautiful beautiful story of your mother - and of many many other women [especially women] from all over the glove who live a life with no freedom or limited freedom - but, for your mother, notwithstanding perhaps her limitations as perceived by you and by me, she was able to find that little silver lining in her freedomless cloud! good for her!!!! i salute her and her cup of tea!!!

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  5. oops - sorry for the typo in my comment above - "glove" should be "globe" - freudian slip i guess - as the HAND pours the tea - hence my typing GLOVE -
    :)

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  6. @Susan
    Ya.. maybe. You cannot push her for the things that she cannot do now. But you can applaud the little things she has achieved.. little things that mattered to her. Contentedness is the key here.

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