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by Dr. Sukhpal Singh

The invitation spread in front of me was from the Principal of the school where my mother taught. I was invited to attend the retirement ceremony of my mother. I did not care much. Such parties were arranged almost every month at our University. Half of the invitees would not show up. Half of the other half was more interested in tea, coffee and pastry and only a few came to greet the parting colleague.

I had slowly lost respect for such events. I was still in that age where I considered myself morally correct while choosing my actions more to please others, than following my own conscience.

Meanwhile, I received a letter from my father who was working in another town: "Dear Son, the moment of retirement is simultaneously filled with pride and gloom. One is not only waiting for an overdue relief from the daily workload but also scared of parting from a major chunk of one's life. This is the job which gave your mother the strength to face difficult circumstances and raise three children on her own as I had to support my own parents, brothers and sisters. Your mother would really need you at such a juncture. In my absence, you must be with her."

I was thinking, while accompanying my mother to her last day at school: "Isn't it good that she is retiring? A long difficult life has virtually destroyed her physically with severe osteoarthritis and hypertension. That is why she refused the position of Principalship ten years ago. She has fallen from the rickshaw four times in last six years. The rickshaw puller, physically maneuvering this three wheeled open air structure hardly cares about the pits and bumps on the roads; his sole motive being getting the next customer in the shortest possible time." The forwardly bent rickshaw seats with no lateral support to hold are so high that a short-statured person like my mother is literally holding on to her life. I have not seen anyone change the structure of the rickshaw in the last thirty years. Those who construct rickshaws are rich enough, never having to take a ride on this cheap mode of transportation meant only for the common people. I have seen even strong young men fall from rickshaws and then taking a hitch in the same rickshaw to the nearest doctor."

I was thinking: "Twice she suffered such severe head injuries that now her hearing capability is reduced to one tenth. Since last year, even the ear aid is not much of a help. We try to make her understand by gestures or by writing. It is like disrespect to the person who all along had a sound hearing sense. Suddenly you are rendered incomplete and inferior and a lesser human being. Compassion from others is a kind gesture, but not a true substitute for one's sense of equality in terms of healthy faculties. One can best relate to others only when one feels equal in every sense. Of late, mother has started keeping her thoughts and emotions to herself. The resulting stress has made her hypertensive which has further depleted her hearing. She is now less logical in conversation, often misunderstands our gestures, and loses temper easily. We try to be patient but the everyday struggle of life has taken a toll on everyone?s reserve. The reserve within us which we usually have for others is now consumed by our own survival during the day. If we lose temper she feels even more cornered and handicapped."

Thoughts in my mind were flowing like a downhill stream: "I was wondering, how she related to her students and colleagues? How she communicated in meetings? I never heard any complaint though, in all these years, except one by my mother?s elder brother. To pressurize his sister for settling a property dispute illegally in his favor, he made a fake complaint about her hearing handicap and urged the authorities to dismiss her.

The enquiry officer, herself suffering from longstanding cancer, was personally familiar with the twin struggle of long illness and keeping one's family afloat all alone. She made an astute enquiry and dismissed the complaint. However, those thirty days of trial were like being in a frying pan for all of us."

When we reached the school, my mother?s colleagues met us with an unexpected fervor. "Do you know that this is the biggest gathering ever in our block to send off a colleague?", they told me. They were true. I had never seen such a big gathering for a send off party at my University, which had fifty times more faculty members.

"Why?" I was curious.

"Because your mother has set the record of the longest uninterrupted school job in the state-forty three years! You should be proud of her!"

I was caught napping, I felt.

The ceremony began. In the beginning, the District Education Officer honored my mother. The first one to speak was the school Principal: "When it is still a time for children to play and dream, this lady who was a girl, yet to complete fifteen years, started earning and supporting her poor parents, who had to migrate due to the partition of our country having left everything behind. The years took their toll physically and emotionally. During the last ten years, it was hard for her to walk because of bad joints. She would come in her class in the morning, and leave only when the last bell rang. She would have her lunch sitting at the same place. For the last few years, her hearing got significantly impaired. In response, she virtually reduced her social life with colleagues to a minimum. She was not unsocial. She would continuously sit in the class, and go on teaching her students. She once told me, "Though I cannot hear them well, at least they can hear me. If I go on teaching, some of it will certainly stay with them?. She gave the best and maximum of her time and attention to her students and her duty. She would be the first one to complete all her records, registers, and marking of examination copies. There were others, including me, in the same school who were physically far more capable than her, but far less efficient. This lady used her handicap as her biggest strength. She used her weakness in favor of her students. Do you know that the students, who are so fond of talking and making noise at the drop of hat, making life hell for other teachers who could hear so well, would stay silent in her class? They would regard her immensely for what she gave them. This woman, whom you might think ok having only half her organs, half her strength, was the hardest working and the best teacher I ever saw in all the years of my service."

The principal was speaking. I did not realize when I stopped listening and was lost in my own thoughts: "How little I knew my own mother? There was a significant and large part of her life which I was totally unaware about. I considered her dedication for her work as a mere routine for earning money. I only saw a tired, helpless, and physically ill woman in her late fifties, who repeatedly threw tempers and was incapable of living and enjoying life properly. How far away I was from the truth? We know only part of the truth and superimpose the same on the entire picture, claiming its authenticity, as if we have "seen" it. Do we really "see"? I asked myself."

"For most of us, if not all of us, parents are two individuals who provide us with sustenance, assert undue authority, unnecessarily remind us of our duties, burden us with their responsibility when they grow old, interfere in our personal lives full of old values, unaware of the frontiers of modern life and the ones who absolutely do not know us, our desires, ambitions, problems and capabilities. In harsh moments, we even think that we are a product of their accidental physical interaction; for sure they never wanted us in the first place. A part of this picture might be true. But once again, we superimpose this part on the entire canvas."

I asked myself: "how many times did I think that the life of my parents was a battlefield where they fought valiantly and uninterruptedly for years, like unheard and unseen warriors, unrecognized by those very people for whom they fought for during their combined survival. How many defeats and betrayals, disease and deaths, hungry days and unslept nights and physical as well as emotional accidents compiled this struggle? I only understand their restrictions but I rarely ask for the wisdom behind these. If they do not understand my modern life, how many times do I try to live back the times they had to actually live in? Even if we were born by an accident, they did not discard us to the ruthlessness of life. They at least accompany us to a point beyond which we can reconstruct our life the way we want. It is true they were probably not perfect people. But am I perfect?"

It seemed to me: "Those who give birth, and those who are born, meet each other in the circles named as mother, father, son or daughter. As if we have come from different planets, just because we are not living in the same time zone inside us. For parents, the child never "grows up" to them and for the child, parents never "grow up" to his times and needs. For a large number of parents, a child is a responsibility who in Indian conditions, is supposed to take over their responsibility when they would grow old. The whole relationship keeps revolving around responsibility, whose centrifugal force blows away a large part of the mutual affection and joy of being together. How shocking it is and how impossible it seems, to live with someone for decades under the same roof and yet not know them? As if the root and the leaf of the same plant did not recognize each other."

My thoughts were interrupted. The principal was inviting me to the stage and share my feeling about this day and my mother.

I started to speak: "I am thankful to you not just for inviting me, but also for letting me see and meet my own mother like never before. I know that my mother often thinks that I am far more educated than her having become a veterinarian, having obtained a degree from Canada which she has only seen on the map, having seen five countries and flown over two seas on an airplane which she has never even seen from close, and having learnt to speak fluent English with well dressed people. I wonder if I make her feel small with the fact that I teach in a University while she is only retiring from a primary school. My mother does think that I have grown taller than her. However, the truth is that I have not even grown closer to her knees because even after receiving three degrees, roaming about in a few countries and reading a lot of books, I still don't have the courage to speak and stand by the truth in a way my old, tired and far less educated mother can do. It will take me an age and may be few lives to be able to do that. I am still too far behind her, too small compared to her."

I grew silent as I could not speak more. I looked at my mother to see if my emotion reached her, if she knew how I see her now.

She was sitting silent and tranquil. Looking in the space, far away from me. The dimensionless space, perhaps as deep and wide as the lonely universe inside her.

I was standing too far from her, her hearing aid would not help from this distance.

She had not heard anything.

Dr Sukhpal Singh has a Doctorate in Veterinary Sciences from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada and is now a Lecturer in the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. He published his first collection of poetry in Punjabi transliterated as And Silently Came Spring.