It is late. My eight-year-old self is awake, staring up at the wooden beams that make up my parents’ bedroom. The street lights throw shadows of leaves on the curtain. I nod off, momentarily, but in a minute, I am wakeful again. 

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Suddenly, a beam of light creeps in from the door. I lay still closing my eyes tight, my mother walks into the room, comes over to the bed where my brother and I lie asleep and kisses our foreheads smoothing the hair from our brows.  

In an instant, I am overcome with sleep, and I drift away. It had been that way for days —the year was 1982 and my father lay seriously ill at Breach Candy hospital fighting for his life — while my mother spent every waking minute by his side, only coming home to change, pack a fresh pair of clothes and kiss our sleeping heads.  

MY MOTHER IS A STRONG WOMAN.  

Giants Stadium, New Jersey: The crowds are cheering and screaming, my father stands on stage in white drainpipes and jacket; the orchestra behind him is playing with the revived energy of a show reaching its finale. He is singing into a mic. My brother and I, seated in an enclosure, watch on, I am shy, so am more retiring. He is jumping all over the place yelling “Papa”, but his voice is drowned out. A beam of light throws a puddle on stage. My mother, in a white sari her beautiful long black hair flowing, walks into it, she folds her hands to the crowds and they roar. She is then swept off her feet by my father and cradled in his arms like a child. She is laughing while holding the mic up to him. He is singing, “Jiski biwi choti, uska bhi bada naam hai…”

MY MOTHER IS A BEAUTIFUL, FEMININE WOMAN.  

It has been a long day, we welcome being called up to the terrace, wading our way between the pleats of our saris. The moon is a jarring milky stain, on a pollution-fuelled Vantablack sky. A flickering oil lamp ditheringly splatters light on a sieve. My mother’s face is luminous in it, she looks at my father through the sieve, in the customary prayer — of Hindu women who observe Karva Chauth, she has been fasting all day. My father gives her a drink of water and something sweet, and then bellows for her dinner to be served immediately.  

MY MOTHER IS A TRADITIONAL WOMAN.  

It is a scorching hot July day. We are sitting in the visitors’ gallery of the Indian Parliament, beneath us scattered like gleaming white shells on a sandy beach, are some of India’s most distinguished and accomplished people. My mother is among them. I keep hoping she will turn back and look at us so we can wave at her; she does not. Her name is called and she stands to take her oath of office. “Main Jaya Bachchan…,” she intones in a voice not unlike when she is admonishing us for bad grades or behaviour — firm and resolute. She is seated again.  As we leave Parliament, bolts of flashlights temporarily pin us to our place, my father walks into it and stands by my mother, he puts his arm around her with pride, she beams up at him.  

MY MOTHER IS A CAREER WOMAN.  

Happy Mother’s Day, Ma! May we always continue to be in debt of your surplus love.