She was from a joint family, got
married in to a simple, conservative family of an extremely small town in
UP. Being the only bahu
(daughter-in-law) of the family she obviously had a lot of responsibilities on
her. At an age of 15, taking care of all the elders, husband & sisters in
law was in never an easy job. But she never complained, she never found it
difficult, she cooked, cleaned, prayed, tended to the sick, looked after the
Kothi(house), she was young, but all this came really naturally to her. For
initial few years of marriage she was too busy with household chores, never got
a chance to go to school or read. Her husband looked after family business
along with his chacha (uncle). He was too simple a man, extremely honest &
silent a person. Would never raise his voice, & was full of compassion for
anyone & everyone. 6 years passed & the couple didn’t have any kids, it
was then her husband decided to leave the family business, go to Varanasi as it
is a religious city & start his own business. The couple thought that maybe
the holiness of the city will bless them with a kid. Finally after 12 years of
being in Varanasi, she gave birth to a son & the family was complete. The
couple wanted to raise the kid well, but husband’s business was in doldrums.
There were days when they had no money to even buy food; she had some jewellery
with her, which she would rent out for survival. The son was barely 4 months old, when monsoons
hit & flood took away everything from the couple, even their roof. It was
then she put her foot down, she knew she wanted her son to have a good life
& the only way out was to go back to the family business. She told her
husband the same, but he was reluctant to go back as he knew chacha wouldn’t
take him back in business. And then the news came that chacha broke his leg
& needs someone to take care of him. The couple immediately went back. They
looked after him; he was too glad to meet his grandson & finally after
struggling for 5 months his soul departed leaving the family business &
kothi to his nephew & grandson
But just having a business isn’t
enough, u need acumen to run it. The business was not doing well, and then she
discussed with her husband & came to decision of renting out parts of the
kothi. They took in some tenants & the main façade of the house was given
to a bank on rent. The first bank of the town was inaugurated in the house.
Being a house wife she had no means to get herself educated but her thirst for
knowledge made her learn by just observing. She would observe the bank as much
as she could & learnt a few things.
The bank moved out in a few
years, their son had started his school & still the business was not in a
good shape. As mentioned her husband was extremely simple & would give away
the merchandise for free to people. She could not take it anymore, finally in
early 1960 she decided to look after the business with her husband. She took
the reins in her hands, despite of living in such a small town & not being
educated enough, she started looking after the business. She dealt with every
stakeholder & the staff, her administration was stupendous & her
customer dealing skills can put MBA gurus to shame. She knew her strengths
really well & capitalised them well, but the best was she knew her weaknesses
better & covered up for them. She
learnt things on-the-go, from experience she mastered herself in maths, and she
also picked up reading just by experience. She left no space for failure &
at the end all she got was success.
Looking after the business never
meant that she would forget about her responsibilities towards family,
religion, society. An extremely religious a soul who believed in God & holy
spirits, every morning she would fulfill her duties towards her God. Looked
after the family really well, cooked, cleaned, every household activity was
carried out as before. She made sure her son gets all the family values &
learns their culture. She kept society at priority & made sure that her
work doesn’t hurt the society. The way she maintained her respect in such a
small town despite of looking after a business is phenomenal.
The couple educated the son
really well, by the time the son was done with his education, father’s health
had started giving issues, it was then decided that the son would start looking
after the business. Son had acquired all the acumen from mother & plus he
has an edge of education with him, but still she stood like the backbone of the
business behind him, providing him an extremely sound a support. Son got
married to a very simple girl from a very small town. She was pretty, elegant,
belonged to a well-to-do family, but had never worked in her life; she was always
a princess at her father’s place.
She taught her daughter-in-law to
cook, to look after the family, to be adept at all household chores, which the
daughter-in-law mastered in a few years. The Daughter-in-law gave birth to
three kids, 2 girls & a boy, she dearly loved her grandkids, she had an
extra responsibility now, to be a grand-mom & she squeezed in the role
really well in her life.
Her husband’s health was not
getting any better & the son wanted to expand the business. He needed some
extra support; she took another decision that shook the town. She asked her
daughter-in-law to join the business. It was a very conservative town for women
to work but she knew she would groom her daughter-in-law into a respectable
business woman & so she did.
Her husband passed away; son
& daughter-in-law were looking after the business really well & she
could have easily retired, but she decided not to. She wanted her grandkids to
get the best of education. She supported her son’s decision to send them to
hostel for education. All 3 kids went to hostel & the rest 3 members of the
family toiled day & night to look after the family business.
Age was never an issue for her,
she would run the flight of stairs 8-9 times a day which I dread to do even
today. She would get up early in the morning & finally when she retired to
bed at night, she never slept, she always thought it was her responsibility to
guard the house & family. Her day was packed even at an age of 90. She
would ask her son, daughter-in-law & grandson to get up late, have
breakfast n finish their morning chores while she would go, have the showroom
unlocked & looked after it all by herself for couple of hours in the
morning.
She was tough of course, she was
tough to her son, her daughter-in-law, to her staff, but had she not been
tough, it would have been impossible to get things done. But once she had
moulded them all well, she revealed the softer side of her. To world she was a tough
mother-in-law, but in last few years of her life, all she ever wanted was the
security of having her daughter-in-law near her. The love that she had
developed for her, she was never able to express but it reflected. When she
fell sick, the first person she would name would be her daughter-in-law. Her
grandkids were always her lifeline, she always adored them. She witnessed the
wedding of her eldest grand-daughter & grandson. She has 4 great grand
kids. And she dearly loves her grand son-in-law & grand daughter-in-law.
11th December 2012, 12:42, my mom called me
to tell that ‘she’ passed away, I closed my eyes & in 2 minutes I saw what
all ‘she’ had been all her life. The balance that she had in her life in that
era is impossible to achieve now. They all say, I resemble my grand-mom a lot,
but if I can achieve even 1/100th of what ‘she’ has achieved in her
life, I will be glad enough. Such a balance, such panache for business, such
technique for administration, such beauty of customer handling & yet such a
complete woman she was. She excelled in all circles of life, a wonderful mother,
daughter, wife, sister, grandmother. Society& religion were always her
priority. I wonder how a woman can be so complete in just one life time, just
one. Today one can either have a perfect career, or be a perfect family person.
Society & religion are long forgotten. I closed my eyes & I for a
moment I realised my loss. We lost her at 93, she was suffering a lot, she
lived her life completely, she departed as a complete soul but her absence
sends shivers through me. I can never have another ‘you’ dadda & I owe my
life completely to you. If not for you I don’t think I would have ever had the
means to be able to write this. Your absence will be felt; but this is not an
obituary, this is a salute, a salute to a woman of substance, salute to your
courage & salute to your
foresightedness. RIP
