Thursday, January 7, 2010

shades from my mother's obscure life

'Obscurity' as a word means the state of being unknown.It would rather seem like a surprise if I narrate my mother's  life as an element of obscurity.From the moment I remember I could see her work haplessly towards making our ends meet.I was the first child and so the struggle to provide me a decent life made both my parents work in the government sector which was considered rather prestigious two decades back.My mother joined job quite early in her young age as she did get a job right after her wedding.

Since that day till now she has had the courage to persistently carry on with her professional chores withoout any regrets.She sacrificed all her fun filled moments to work as the only motivation was to educate a son good enough to bag a lucrative job that can send chill down the spines of envious neighbours who were much more boggled by our failure than our success.She would follow the same routine almost every day in the last twenty seven years-go to office ,come back in the evening and I can't deny she did help me out with my studies when as a kid the only thing that disinterested me was studies.The rest of the time she would just give in to the whims and fancies of my father following any command without making it go through her thought process as men did dominate the country,democracy was indeed theoretical back then.

She relentlessly followed this life style.Work became an obsession,a medium to breathe and with time she lost track of emotional strings attached to the family.Now when I look back and retrospect her life I see she has not changed a bit.I hardly recall having a meaty discussion with her anytime as she has always been a denizen of her thought land.I stopped mattering with time.It was just the objectives that were driving her.She is still the same woman she was, biting dust in the shadows of obscurity. My father was always with her in this unnerving long voyage but on a a very translucent level. At this juncture when she is about to retire in another four years I see her immersed in her work which is preparing some slides on powerpoint-occasional conversations jump out owing to her ignorance in MS Powerpoint-she was a veteran on the typewriter but ever since government offices started the digital revolution using Bill Gate's software,people like her who were employed in the pre dotcom boom era started facing issues in gargantuan proportions.

I pity her life as it has had no significance as far as I can understand.I shun her mysterious obscurity as I feel she became congruous to an inanimate thing which was suddenly disturbed from equilibrium.I fear tomorrow after retirement she would suddenly face an identity crisis and might inspire some Scorsese to create a new Hollywood Flick which I think should be named 'An insignificant obscure life'.May God grace her with some attributes more humane.