Priya (the author), her mom and grandmom
A lovely, heart warming tribute by Priya Narendra to her mom. I have known Priya since we were in our teen years. She is a mom of three with an incredible sense of humor as well as a full time working professional living in Delhi, India. She’s also an author, an active blogger and is married to an ‘adorable’ man (her words, not mine!) Check out the dazzling colors of the sarees in the photograph.
When I reflect back on my relationship with mom, what amazes me is that we were friends from a very early age. It’s surprising because she was brought up in a typically conservative South Indian, patriarchal household where the parents laid down the rules and the job of the children was to obey without question. She had a fairly formal relationship with grandma, from whatever I had seen. But maybe she wanted to change that, or perhaps formality isn’t something that comes naturally to my mother.
It must have been a little hard for her to deal with me because I’m a born tomboy and quite rebellious. If she told me to wear a lehenga, I would ensure I wore jeans. If she wanted me to grow my hair, I’d go into the bathroom and give myself a haircut. If she wanted me to learn to cook, I made sure to only learn about baking . I went through an intense adolescence with all the crazy moodswings and my dad and I were polar opposites in attitude, so we were always at loggerheads.
But mom was the family anchor, the go-between during the hundreds of times that dad and I weren’t speaking with each other. The conveyor of messages back and forth while trying to maintain her individual relationships with each of us. The one who would try and explain one to the other. In fact, she always kept the communication channels open, and there were few issues I couldn’t discuss with her, from career plans to friendships to the birds-and-bees conversation in which she was surprisingly candid, given her own strict upbringing. Read the rest of this entry »
