I miss wishing my mother "Happy Mother's Day" almost every year since I know such a day exists. Either my little sister or my mother herself reminds me of it and then I wish her (and sometimes share a relevant facebook post on my timeline). This story is about my mother and everything associated with her. Mostly food.
My mother according to me can easily qualify to be the ambassador of selfless love. Most of you will think the same for your mother as well. Similar to many other girls from middle class family in a small town, she was a hard working student in college. And then she got married. She quit her studies and took responsibilities of home following an unsaid rule.
Her responsibilities grew tremendously when I was born. And when my little sister arrived two years later she even forgot about her basic needs like sleep. Working day and night making happy home a reality I never saw her spend any time or money for herself. She had always been too busy to even think about herself. In her free time she planned about our future or rather worried about it. She prayed to god, kept fasts, pooja, pilgrimmage and what not.
Even if I can't find a direct corelation between her sacrifices and our success(in her eyes atleast), I can clearly see the impact of her moral and logistical support during our studies and even now. We never had to worry about thousands of things that needs to be managed at home, and never ever about food.
Infact food is something which had been her top priority ever since we were born. Me and my sister were always under constant fear that we will have to eat again anytime very soon and that too in quantity way beyond our capacity. And she always thought why don't we eat properly, and why we hated green vegetables and malai. She made variety of dishes always trying to make them better and healthier so that her kids eat some more. And I was able to realise how good the taste was only after I went college.
But now when her kids are married and settled in their job and she now finally have some time. Since last few months it comes up in our conversations every now and then that all her work is finished now, all responsibilties done. I always suggest ways in which she can now utilise her time now. Once I suggested that she pack her bags and travel. Something which I wished for myself. I even suggested that she write a blog post on WriterBabu about her stories. None of my ideas ever worked. It was all out of her interest area.
One day it just happened accidentally that I was browsing website designs for reference at work and I saw a recipe website theme. It just struck me. I thought mom is quite free now a days and she loves cooking and she is good at it. Setting up a simple blog is very easy and I can set it up this weekend. It was friday(2nd Sept). I shared my idea with mom. She listened to me patiently. I can't say how much she understood me but she said "we can think about it, why not?".
I was feeling excited for mom. I shared the idea with Saumya(my wife) and she said she will help. When I reached home I told mom how women of her age are running similar blogs and how successful they are. It motivated her and now she was finally on board with the idea. My role was to setup the blog and mom and Saumya will take it from there. I set up the blog that weekend and my work was done, I thought. But I was soon to become their photographer. Everything she cooked was to be photgraphed. Mom wrote the recipes in hindi in her notebook and Saumya took care of the language and posts on the blog. After just one month there are about 40 recipes on her recipe blog which resides at lakshmirecipes.com. I feel happy for her, she is starting up at 50. I really hope it takes off.
The best part is that we get interesting things to eat everyday ... :D
