AN OPEN LETTER
TO A GRIEVING MOTHER
WHO LOST HER
SON
Dear Mom,
The meandering storms of
fate had struck you hard, they tore through your world that you cared to fill
with love and fun for years. You were then at the helm of the setting sun, I
mean per age. You still did not attain menopause and you still looked so pretty
and sensuous. Yes, sensuous is the word I would use. For every time you sat
before the mirror to add a touch of colour to your dark cheeks, I stared at you
mesmerised. I was past my teens, into the age when a young college girl would
herself try and deck up to draw attention. I could never do it. I was forever
overshadowed by you. Thus, left my looks to the natural tinge. You were admired
by men, loved by my handsome dashing father, you were playmates to your
students in school and to us, all called you Big Aunty lovingly. You had always
shared with me your secret. You wanted only one child and was happy to have a daughter.
I felt blessed.
But when he came, you
never knew. You were still bleeding three months down the line, you said it was
an accident. Yet, you were pregnant and against your wishes and that of dad,
you went ahead to become a mother again. It was a stormy night, rain splashing
against my window panes when you sat up in the darkness and said you need to be
taken to the hospital as your water broke. Little did I know what that meant
but dad took you, leaving me behind, alone, with our maid for the first time. I
had never stayed alone before. You took care to be always with me. I was
frightened. Little did I know the meandering storm of fate had already written
its cruel story of reward and punishment. Little did I realise the waves of
unpredictability had already set in, and that such a storm would again rage
twelve years later. I wasn’t prepared for the second one though, the
frightening lightnings and thunder claps that banged on my window that night
were enough to keep me occupied.
But the dawn was beautiful.
Rain-washed. It was spring, season of a new beginning. And the sudden
unpredictable rain was like the harbinger of life, cleaning off the dirt and
dust, sending ripples of charm around. Yes, you promised a new beginning too. Dad
called up to say you had a son at the stroke of midnight when the storm was
raging outside, a new life amid us, a new dimension to the family. I was
confused, didn’t know how to react, didn’t want the safe world of mine where I
dominated alone for ten long years to be taken over by someone else. Yet, when
you returned after a long absence for health reasons, your warm smile assured
me. I knew your love would never be shared.
And then there was a
lull. No storm ever for twelve long years. Only waves of laughter and fun, of
tours and travels, of sharing and caring, of triumphs, of birthday parties, of
friends and family. We had all forgotten about the storm that had struck at my
window pane years back bringing in the news of a birth. But this time again it
came, with the ferocity of a tornado. Even a strong person like you couldn’t
salvage what was left behind after it ravaged through our sweet home and left
an ever-lasting streak of destruction. I looked up to you with pleading eyes,
asking for advise, I didn’t know how to react, but you wouldn’t help. You
returned my yearning with a vacant look, at times tears streaking down. You turned
into the frozen maiden, you were no more ‘hot’ as they used to say, you went
numb. And when one day you held my hands and asked: ‘Why did he need to come, I
never wanted him, and why when he came did he have to leave me?’ I had no
answer.
Many others had
answers though. Doctors misdiagnosed and then came up with statistics of how
unknown fever, malaria etc could kill people easily, how it’s difficult to
treat, how science has done miracles but still we are helpless. Yes, your love
of life, your son, had turned by then into a statistical figure, just ten days
before his 12th birthday. How he no more would smile at you other
than from the photo frames that stood on your side table, how he would never
call you mommy again, how he would never hold your hands and caress you to
sleep, how you would never again play hide and seek with him, admire his
paintings or read his poetry.
Visitors thronged,
relatives and friends. They always do. Don’t they? To review the situation. But
your grief was yours. There were some who left with a consoling word or two,
there were some who even commented on the paints on the walls of the room (some
were peeling off as you had not painted the rooms for three years, I was
getting allergic asthma from the smell of paints), there were others who admired
each-others’ sarees. And then there were the so-called intelligent ones who repeatedly
asked the cause of death, little knowing how relating the story of the hours
before a death is almost like relating the story of rape by a rape victim twice
in court. They shook their heads in superior knowledge and even recommended
names of good doctors, almost accusing you and dad of not taking your son to
the right one. But it was a matter of two days only, wasn’t it? And three
doctors within the family and even the best known senior physician of the city assured
you it was just a case of simple flu. You were satisfied with their advice and got
involved in the Saraswati Puja celebrations at home with your school students
and teachers. Little did you know this would be the last time that any idol
would visit your house ever.
But my eyes were on those, whose painted false faces rejoiced at your fall, at last you will lose your
spirit, your zest, your love and your sensuality. They were all waiting to see
you broken, so that they could sympathise. But I know what you needed that day was
empathy. And I also knew you can never be broken, you were like me, not even
God can defeat you.
I remember how you
came back one day from a salon and just cried in my arms. Someone
who had come to deck herself up asked you, ‘How come you are here!’ Five months
after your son’s death you were visiting a salon? You must have done a great
mistake. Places of pleasure were no more for you. You were a grieving mother who
lost her only son. Like the widows of yesteryears, you should have confined
yourself to home brooding and encouraging those who had so long been jealous of your happiness.
Yes, the society had
suddenly turned you an alien. As a grieving mother, you were no longer allowed
to earn the same respect as you did when you had a son, after all you wouldn’t ever
be able to participate in conversations of mothers who boasted of their son’s
achievements. You were truly an outcast. There were those who pointed at you
and whispered among themselves like they do when they point at a murderer. Yet,
you raised your head and stamped your feet, you still applied colours to your
cheeks, went for a haircut that made you look more sensuous than before.
And I started loving
you more. Because, you survived the pain gracefully. None who didn’t know you
would ever know of your void. You taught through your life that the show must
go on, come what may. Just like a wild buffalo caught by its predator fights
for life, and at times sets itself free from the clutches of death, you too
fought your memories. There were many to give you advice, asking you to be
consoled that you still have a daughter left, citing examples of those who had
lost their only child. I know those examples were futile for you were a
grieving mother. Loss of any child is unique. How could you fill in one gap
with the other? It’s not like getting divorced and finding another partner in
bed. It’s like pushing the emptiness of a void off one’s life without filling
it up and going ahead towards a new beginning, where memories never get erased,
where a small piece of handwriting suddenly discovered from within a
long-forgotten drawer brings tears again, when a plant nurtured and cared by
your son’s hands caresses you again, when the bed where we all slept together stands
in stoic silence years later, when the nature around goes on, when spring
comes, your garden blooms but the sheen of your eyes, your son has hid himself somewhere
that’s beyond your reach.
And yes, grieving mom,
I was touched this time not by your sensuality but by your grit and courage.
That made you more beautiful than ever. I refuse to call you a grieving mom. You have won the test of life. I thus call you a winning mom. You
don’t have a son who went to IIT or IIM, you don’t have tales to tell of how
you married him off to the daughter of a rich man at some lavish wedding
ceremony, you don’t have grandchildren to continue your direct family line as
they say, and use them as trophies. But still, you have won. For you know what
life is all about, you have experienced it, loved it and still continue loving
it. You have learnt it’s about fulfilment and loss, about tears and smiles,
about light and darkness and about all the opposites ever possible.
You have withstood the
storm. That meandering storm that came to wreck you but left with a silent
whistle, conquered by you and defeated in the game. I thus salute you grieving
mom.
Whips, ropes, belts, handcuffs, masking tapes, cable
ties, floggers for spanking… the list went on… trying to impress upon the
readers that there were these and more in Christian Grey’s ‘playroom’ to add on
to that ‘Oh My God’ life-shattering orgasmic pleasure that Grey promised to
give his woman. But the minute I started reading the best-seller that made
waves across the world I knew it was sickening, not for the vivid sex scenes
but for the utter rubbish of the ‘dominant’ and ‘submissive’ game play between
Grey and his love interest Anastasia Steele. What was surprising for me to
digest is why a bright literature university student like Anastasia had to act
as the submissive ‘toy girl’ of rich industrialist Grey in his specially built
playroom where he used sadistic means in the name of giving pleasure to the
girl and why she every time had to express and acknowledge that sexual
gratification. And what kind of pleasure an intelligent, educated girl gets
submitting as an object, on whom Grey uses all sorts of quirky sex toys without
having proper sex! Page after page stamped on the idea that if the woman
submits in the game of sex, only then she gets the maximum pleasure from the
man. Of course later in the book the author tries to cover up this sickening
trend of male dominance by bringing in Grey’s troubled childhood that led to
his deranged psychology. 
