My Mother Lies……

​The title of this post may seem a bit weird to everyone who reads this. But what today I am going to say is the truth- My Mother Lies!

How can one expect someone so sacred as a mother to lie and that too to her own blood. This may sound strange, maybe upsetting to many. But as hard as it sounds, my mother lies.. 

I have only heard stories from her and my father how I was brought up and how we are what we are. I remember not Vividly but still in pieces. Since the day I had an intelligence to take decisions (which mostly included which junk food to go in for), I remember my mother lying to me. The first thing that I remember was that she told me whenever I used to take out my red shiny tricycle(which I mostly dragged) to ride it in the neighborhood. It was about the man who will come and take me away with him in his big bag which was full of children who never listened to their mothers. I went outside most of the times. That man never came. But my mother did and whenever she came I was rewarded with salt and sweet. Later she applied some cream on my red cheeks and would give me a small candy that she used to put in that highest shelf which I couldn’t reach. Whenever I asked for one, she would say that I will lose all my teeth and will never grow them back. I remember getting the candy once when no one was around. The whole almirah came down with it and so did my teeth. I remember having a fist fight with my brother and some of them falling with it. I later took them out on by one(I was an adventurous kid) That man never came but my mother was always there. She thrashed both of us to make us sit and then would say. If both of you don’t sit in one place I will call the teacher and tell her that you have been a bad kid. We feared our teacher. She used to search for us when she was mad. We were the popular punching bags of the class. So we sat down maybe for a second. She came sprinting towards to separate us. We were fighting like cats. 

I had a very bad habit of sucking my fingers(they tasted so good). So one day she told me. If you do it one more time, your fingers would dissolve and would no longer be there. I knew this won’t happen. So I continued doing it. But when she saw me, I did not feel my fingers for sometime. I think that was the closest i got to losing my fingers.

Whenever we were out and she and my father were tired of carrying me, they would lay me and my brother down and make us walk. They would say just around the corner is our destination. The destination came but I remember seeing them tired and exhausted and yes the destination was not always around the corner. 

My parents had to work very much with the food I took. I was a spoilt kid and yes I never did eat the good stuff. My mother devised something. She made pizza one day. And she put in it Spinach and everything green. I ate it. But now pizza is ordered from outside. I now don’t allow her to make pizza at home. 

As I grew up her lies became even more profound and well thought. She used to give a lot of thought in telling a lie so that we are tricked into believing her. 

One day while we were out for dinner, I looked at her and asked her if she wants that last slice of pizza. She said she was full. I later saw her eating the various things she keeps in those small little boxes. When I asked her why didn’t she eat it. She said she didn’t liked Pizza. She likes extra seasoning and wants her pizza to be extra spicy, now I know. These days were one of the many. You see how clever and cunning she has become. 

My mother has a habit of eating all of the food that was made a day before. I always ask her why she does that. And she always say, the food of the previous day tastes good. And when I started doing the same, she started throwing it away. 

Recently she got ill and I was scared. I didn’t knew what to do but didn’t tell anyone. You see company affects you. I lied that I was okay when on the inside I was breaking walls. While I took her to the hospital, she said nothing. When she came back, she said she was fine. The only thing I did was didn’t listen. I closed the door to her room and took her phone with me. She had the best sleep. Later in the day, she came out the bed as my father was making dinner. She came all the way to the kitchen and started arranging things. None of us said a word. We stopped doing what we’re doing. I am fine she said. We know, all three of us said and she went back to the bed. She slept like a baby only to be woken up by the morning alarm. She was preparing the lunch boxes for all of us. When I asked why did she come out. She said, how could I have let you all go put empty stomach. I let her make the tiffin and I tried finding the tiffin box, I failed miserably as the terrain was alien to me. She was done with the lunch boxes and I again forced her to rest. All the time she was saying that she was fine. 

I don’t know what gives power to an individual to have the courage to tell a lie in the eyes and still be able to live that lie. Since when I had the eyes to see the unseen,  my mother, my father, my brother have hidden from me, I have become a different person.

Love in the purest of forms changes you. It grows something inside you that is unique yet universal. It never wants you to hurt. But when it does, it gives you a remembrance, something iridescent, something that stays forever like a scratch that can never heal. You see it, everything flashes infront of you. You imagine what gave it to you and how it added to you. 

Humans have a life to give to others. My family has been the greatest teacher who taught me this simple fact. And purest forms of love is not about receiving. It’s about giving. 

Of all the lies my mother has told me, the one she clearly wants me to believe is that doesn’t like to be treated like a little girl. But yes one day or the other, the three of us try making her a queen and let me tell you the smile on her face that is something all of us can do anything to let it grow. 

She is the one who wakes up before the sun and sleeps after the moon has fallen asleep. But we three are aligned to her. 

 

She is our universe.