Lioness - By Nayana Gadkari

The trill of the phone broke her reverie as she mindlessly prepared for the day ahead. She would later think that some days begin with no indication of how they end. Her mother was in the hospital, they told her. They are running tests now, they said. They would try to get her mother to talk to her soon. Endless hours passed as she waited. The all too familiar guilt of being 7000 miles away was burning a mom-sized hole in her heart and threatening to get bigger. After what seemed like an eternity, they called her back. The thought of her mother in the hospital many oceans away was twisting like a dagger in her heart. She needed to go.

Mind-numbed, she started packing for the journey back home. Only this time, she did not grab the most enormous bags to engorge with gifts lovingly picked and carefully wrapped. Instead, she chose a modest bag. She wasn't packing for a celebration now, was she? She wondered what does one pack to be a caregiver instead of the one doted upon?

As the massive 380 circled over Mumbai Airport, a feeling of utter dread gripped her as it hit her; in all her years of existence, she had never seen her mother sick or defeated...ever. All anyone knew of her mother was this lioness of a woman with the fiercest of hearts, steady and unshakable. Stoic, through the inevitable storms she weathered as a wife and as a mother. More than her fair share, some would say. She was a tour de force; her mother was her rock. She always looked and felt...invincible. Then, how?

The aircraft touched down; the entire plane erupted in loud cheers. Startled, she remembered that this was a joyous flight home for most. She looked around to see if anyone else onboard was as completely melancholic as she was. Was anyone else going home to see their world turned on its head?

As she drove home from the airport, Mumbai's familiar sights and sounds in the pre-dawn hours did little to comfort her. The sweet melody of koels singing on the trees outside her home fell on deaf ears as she entered the house she grew up in. For the first time, her mother didn't rush forward to wrap her in a warm, generous embrace. None of the usual rituals at the door to welcome her home. No water sprinkled over her shoulder to ward off the "evil eye," no "tika" on her forehead.

That's when she saw her. Her beautiful mother. Sweet-faced and smiling as usual but lying down, somewhat incapacitated. She looked smaller somehow. The life force within her was damaged some. The tornado had ebbed a tad. She touched her mother's feet, and her mother put her hand lovingly on her daughter's head to bless her. She remembered thinking, this was all she needed to ward off any evil eye, wasn't it?

Her mother's blessings had cocooned her all her life like an invisible, unbreakable shield, and she didn't even know it. Where her father was the effervescent Gatsby, her mother had been the gentle, calming influence. Where he was the churning ocean, she had been the peaceful pond.

Strange but fitting memories sometimes get triggered with the right stimuli; a steel container beside her mother suddenly reminded her of the legendary lunch boxes her mother used to pack carefully and lovingly for her. Cucumber sandwiches cut into tiny squares for the first recess at school, a more substantial "roti sabji" lunch for the second recess accompanied by the most delicious buttermilk in a steel bottle.

Her mother's maid was helping her mother eat breakfast, and her mind flashed back to the day before her wedding. A host of henna artists were buzzing around at home at this spot. Two of them decorated her hands with beautiful, elaborate bridal "mehndi," but she was hungry! She could be a brat at her mother's home, could she not? She remembered with the biggest lump in her throat how her mother had come over with a huge thali filled with her favorite foods. She sat gently beside her, cupped her face, and said, "Let me feed you." She would eat the most soul-satisfying meal she ever had, tears rolling down both their faces and the faces of everyone in the room, the henna artists needed a moment to compose themselves. It was the loudest declaration of unconditional love in a silent, wordless, choked room. 

Reverie, broken, she looked up at her mother's gentle face, and it was lit up like a thousand suns because her daughter was home. She was home. Her mother's roar may be a little feeble, but she was every bit the fierce lioness now…as she always was. And her lioness would be back to lead her pride. Her cubs don't really know any other way anyway…