My Maa

May 26, 2024

When I read the topic I began to ponder on a Mother’s influence on a child and I couldn't help smiling a bit
lopsidedly! I grew up without my Maa. But thanks to the convent in the hills Mother Mary took me under
her care.
My Maa passed away, she had heart failure and in a minute she was gone. Once all the relatives had left I
sized up my father thinking ‘So now you're in charge’! And poor man must have been thinking ‘What am I
going to do with you?’
So my eldest brother's modern wife got my long plait cut off and found this sweet Convent of Jesus and
Mary in Mussoorie and there I was packed off !
It’s not a joke. Mother Mary really mothered me beautifully. I was more or less healthy. I was an average
student. I was happy. I loved reading book after book and I adored singing the hymns in the chapel. It must
have been her influence that I was like any other child. She must have given me the wisdom (eight years
onwards) to take everything in my stride. I accepted life as it came. I'm saying so because I know people
who took the absence of a mother as a special badge to get spoilt rotten and ruined their lives. Mother Mary
never let me feel any lack.

College life was difficult. My life with Father was not easy we couldn't understand each other but I never resented anything. I had planned to live quietly somewhere like a nun but I didn;t get a chance to take
sanyaas!! As a teenager my sweet husband walked into my life and then I was as thrilled as I never
imagined I could be!! My sweet Mother Mary saw us through a lovely courtship and a simple wedding and
many wonderful amazing years together in the Tea Gardens of Assam.
Though many-many years down the line we entered the Guru Marg. Mother Mary holds a warm and very
special place in my heart. It is said that when a period ends with one Master, He or She passes the devotee
on to the next Guru. That is what Mother Mary did for me. To me she is real and the best Mother a
motherless girl could have asked for.
But let me add a bit about my real Maa .She was very beautiful, very gentle but strong. My father was thirty
odd years older than her...Can you imagine!! But Maa took care of my father's children by his first wife and
also her own young brothers. She got everyone settled in life. Tara Devi...my Maa... was an author and
playwright. Her stories used to appear in a magazine in those days. Her stories were told over the radio. Tara
Devi protected all of us ( I was an infant then ) during partition and she even knocked off intruders who
climbed over the balconies without batting an eyelid..
Perhaps Tara Devi and I could have been good friends had we the chance...? But she sent me Mother Mary
in her stead.

Kum Kum Ajit Singh

Kum Kum Ajit Singh a former teacher at Mayo College Girls’ today enjoys the life of a satisfied and doting Dadi. Residing with her family in Ajmer she loves to reminiscence, observe and write.