Golden Moments...

I am a 23 year old married woman and have never missed my parents so much in my life as i do now. I have the best parents in the world. This is no revelation, i have known it ever since i started uttering the word...'Ma'. But as i do miss them very much, i thought why not write about them.

Well, my childhood was not very different from any other Indian. As any other previledged child i have fought with my mother for almost any and every reason in this world...from waking me up in the morning, getting me to eat breakfast, for staying out late to bringing home complaints from all over.Of all these fights and taunts the only time i could never fire-back at her was when i got my report card. I had no place to run or hide and no excuses to give and she had all the opportunity in the world to scold me whatever and practically whenever and where ever she felt. she used it as a weapon to get things done, as it turned out every time, for my own good.

If i rose up like a tigress in front of my mother, i was a mellowed cat in front of my father. There is a common saying that daughters are usually close to their father. Let alone close, i dont remember me even sitting anywhere in his vicinity. Coz i was always up to no good and he would find it out no matter how well i planned to hide it. In short. his name was enough to create terror amongst me and my brother.

The only consolation during all this, was the fact that i was never alone, be it beating, scolding or any other ordeal i always had a loyal company...my brother!! My parents never differentiated between us siblings. we were treated equally in every matter from getting candies to punishments. No matter who was at fault, we both bore the brunt and that was another incentive for us to work together as partners in crime and we eventually learnt to cover up each others plots in exchange for a favour.

...and all this continued for 21 years.

Now, its almost a year since i got married and moved to USA. I dont fight with my mother any more and i am not afraid of my father either but i do have a million reasons to love them even more. I am thankful to have them as my parents. Today when i look back at all those years, i cant find them at fault once. All the beatings and blastings were to discipline us. To make us better human beings. If at all people find an iota of goodness, honesty and morality in me its all because of them. For the ME i am now and the ME i will be evolving into, i owe it all to my parents.

I have learnt a lot from my parents. I always knew that my father loved us all a lot, but he was never action oriented.I learnt it a bit late, that my father loves me the most and every time i received a blow from him verbally or otherwise he would ask my mother to come and console me. He was proud of my achievements. But most of all he was proud of the daughter that i have grown up to be. All this and more, my mother told me on the night of my marraige when we again re-lived my childhood memories in the stillness of the dark.

That was a golden moment for me and the lesson those moments carried with them was the best present i as a new bride-to-be could have asked for.

I have probably learnt the most from my mother and will consider it a big achievement if i can be half as good as she is- a wonderful Daughter, an ideal Wife, a dutiful Daughter-in-law, a great Mother and a beautiful Person inside-out.