The
importance of language becomes clear when we are in distress
Like me,
both my sons also married for love. The difference, however, is that their love
was genuine, unlike mine. I never cared for my wife and children with the same
love and affection with which they cared for their families.
Bhavana
was determined to marry our elder son, Sandeep. So her father, Mr. Srivastav,
came to Hyderabad by air from Ranchi with his wife, Indu Srivastav. They stayed
at some five-star hotel and, without informing us in advance, came straight to
our house the next morning to say that they wanted to give their daughter in
marriage to Sandeep.
We lived
in a two-room flat with no second bedroom. Their home in Ranchi, as we learned
after the wedding, was enormous. It had lawns in front and behind, much like a Raj
Bhavan, swings, a Gurkha guarding the gate, two drivers, and a domestic worker
for almost every household task. They lived in royal comfort. Until the
wedding, even our son knew nothing about all this.
As soon
as Mr. Srivastav entered our home, he looked around carefully. He seemed to
understand our circumstances immediately. Yet, with his daughter insisting on
the marriage, he gathered the courage to tell us that they had come to discuss
the alliance.
I
immediately said, “I have only one objection to accepting your daughter.”
Both
husband and wife were stunned when they heard those words from me. I called my
wife and asked her to explain everything I said so that they understood every
word exactly as I intended. Even a slight misunderstanding could make them
interpret my words differently.
My wife
knew a little Hindi.
I told
them:
“Your
daughter does not know Telugu. When everyone is happy, we can manage with any
language. But someday, if our family or our son causes her pain, whatever the
reason may be, she should know our language so that she can share her feelings
with us and find comfort. We should be able to console her. That is why
language matters. If she says, ‘I will learn Telugu somehow,’ then Bhavana will
no longer be your daughter. From this moment, she will be our daughter.”
My words
left the Ranchi couple speechless, and tears welled up in their eyes.
They held
my hands and said, “From this moment, Bhavana is your daughter.”
That was
how Bhavana entered our home as our elder daughter-in-law, stepping in with her
right foot first.
At the
time of the wedding, she did not know even a word of Telugu. Whenever everyone
at home spoke rapidly in Telugu, the poor girl would sit there looking
completely lost.
Once,
when we went to America, Bhavana recalled those days and told me:
“At that
time, Attayya stood by me. Every week, she would take me to watch a Telugu
movie. She would explain the story to me in Hindi and ask me to tell her what I
understood in Telugu. That was how she slowly taught me Telugu. Kala, the girl
who worked in our home as maid, became another Telugu teacher for me. Santosh,
though he was my brother-in-law, treated me with great affection and helped me
a lot with Telugu, often calling me ‘bahurani.’
“When I
was pregnant with Sakhi, I suffered badly from morning sickness. During those
days, Attayya took care of me as though
I were her own child. She would feed me and say, ‘Do not wait for your
father-in-law or anyone else. Eat your meals on time. They can eat whenever
they are free.’
“If
Santosh even sensed that my legs were aching, he would somehow figure it out
and, without the slightest hesitation, massage my feet. He was as precious as
gold. Even today, I cannot believe that he is gone. My mother-in-law, who was
like a goddess, is gone. Santosh, who was like a diamond, is gone.”
As
Bhavana said these words, tears filled her eyes.
The tears
in my own eyes had dried up long ago.
When I
got married, I had never seen my future in-laws. I met them in Madras only a
day before the wedding. The very next day, we were married in Tirupati.
In this
respect, my daughters-in-law had a slightly better experience. Before their
weddings, they had met and spoken to my wife, even if they had not met me.
Perhaps they gave their approval to marry our sons only after meeting her. I
sometimes wonder what might have happened if they had met and spoken to me
first.
Imagine a
mother’s state of mind when her son, studying engineering at Ramtek near
Nagpur, suddenly arrives home in an auto at the crack of dawn with two young
women. This is what happened.
One of
those two young women, neither of whom knew Telugu at the time, was Bhavana.
This is how she recalls it:
My first
memory of Attayya :
“I once
travelled from Nagpur to Hyderabad by train with my friend Swathi to take the
GRE. I did not know that Sandeep was travelling on the same train. At that
time, I knew nothing about him except that he was my college mate.
“Both of
us were new to Hyderabad. It was still dark when we arrived. Uber and Ola did
not exist then. So we asked Sandeep if he could drop us somewhere along his
route. While we were travelling, we realized that the place where we needed to
go was close to his home. So we decided to let him get off first and then
continue on our own.
“I
remember it very clearly. It was completely dark outside. It must have been
around 5:30 in the morning. The auto stopped in front of a house in Durganagar.
Sandeep got down and opened the gate.
“As soon
as he opened the gate, someone opened the main door. A woman appeared at the
doorway with a warm smile. The moment I saw her face, I sensed her affection.
Sandeep greeted her, saying, “Amma.”
“She must
have known that Sandeep was coming because she had already opened the door.
Then she noticed the two of us sitting in the auto. Sandeep introduced Swathi
and me to her.
“I
remember that she wore a beautiful green sari that morning. She warmly invited
both of us inside. She insisted that we freshen up while she prepared breakfast
and told us to eat before leaving.
“There
was so much warmth and affection in the way she spoke to us. Until then, I had
never seen a mother welcome two young girls she had never met, who had arrived
at her home at dawn with her son, invite them inside so affectionately, and
insist that they have breakfast before leaving.
“For some
reason, I felt an inexplicable desire to see her again. I also had a strange
feeling that I would meet her again.
“At that
moment, none of us knew what God had planned.
“We did
not know that I would spend more than the next twenty years under the loving
care of that wonderful woman, that I would enter her home as her
daughter-in-law, and that I would receive her affection as my mother-in-law.
“Even
though she is no longer physically with us, I believe that her blessings
continue to reach us from heaven.”
Bhavana
Photo
below:
The bond
between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law
