Moments with Mom

Spending time with your parents, with your family is most wonderful, complete and satisfying one we could ever have. Even if we have nothing, to hear evergreen kind and cheerful word from your mom, irrespective of her mood is the most pleasing and pleasant thing that makes us feel safe and sound. There is only love and kindness and no such thing as hatred in the eyes of a mom. And it is so inspiring to hear all that impossible ones made possible from your masculine dad.

It has been almost a month now that I have my mom staying with me. Because of the odd timing of my work, I mostly miss the time to spend with her, but every evening after the work, sitting near her, near the electric heater makes me feel safe, and forget all the worries; it gives me enough hope and energy to try even harder to get through the hurdles of a day. The terrace of wrinkles on her face makes me think of the difficulties she had to face to bring five of us in the lime light of this world and how much early she had to meet the silent hand of aging. The hair-fall on her head, on the areas where she carried load reminds me of the sweat she perspired to feed us well to be among others. How much kilograms of load would she have carried so far? Perhaps thousands! And yet what choice do we (they) have? Being sealed in the place away from the nearest road point by more than two days walk and lacking even the basic amenities, life during my parents and before had never been easy. Even though a road is now on its way, which has its first inauguration in the year 2007, the fate has been cruel enough to delay years after years and it is saddening to know that a 60KM road construction is taking more than seven years to just have a simple farm road. Now that the construction is being undertaken by the Department of Roads (DOR), hope the fate of so-called Shingkhar Lauripas will be completely changed.

Life at here is different for her though, she has learnt a lot. She now knows how to operate basic mobile phone and to use electrical appliances which is new. We also visited some famous sites including the Taktsang (Tiger’s Nest) which was only heard verbally. But the problem is that she doesn’t like much the life out here. She so often says that without something to do, without something at hand to pass her time like at village back, it is so monotonous and that her days are too long! I insisted her to stay with me, but she has so many reasons to leave! “We also have a home to stay, cattle and horses to tend, fallow fields to fill, firewood to collect etc…” This goes on until I say whenever you are ready?

Did you ever think about how much of our time do we spent with our parents? Perhaps even less than one third of our life! Till the age of six we are just an innocent little kid; then we are admitted to school (or even below at the urban areas where private schools are available), that too some in border schools; we have only that winter holidays to be with them. During the college life and the work after that, we have our own ways, our own things to look after and perhaps our own circle of family which further separates us from the string of connections we once have.