Meri Maa Paaro Thee . . . (My mum was Paaro)

Disclaimer: This is completely a work of fiction.

Yes, she was. Paaro of Dev. Paaro, a messed up and ignored character in the literature, the inauthentic n unresolved literature. I lived with her, she was real, I know. She was my mother.

Till where have u seen her, till the death of Mr. Devdas? or in latest case, cleaning room of Mr.Dev-D. It’s all one and the same thing. But I don’t think u REALLY know her…then let me tell u, as I loved her.

She was a beautiful person.


When I was a kid, say till 13 years old, I couldn’t understand anything around as being busy with a happy child’s world, thanks to great upbringing and love of my mother. But as I ascended in my teenage, there was something that grabbed my unconscious from behind other than sex, girls and infatuation. That was my mother’s silence.
She was a quite lady of dignity since the beginning of the profession of her being a housewife i.e. her marriage. My room was adjacent to my parents’ room and to confess, I sometimes, infact many times, could hear noises of their lovemaking and adventures. These incidents raced my imagination, I couldn’t help it.

My parents were happy together, and proved great guardians to me. But as I turned 16, I had realized by then that there was no love between them both. Still they were happy.

That very year my father passed away.

She started to be more quite after this. The quietness of a quite lady excelled due to loneliness. Her presence became an absence.

When I was 17 and handling my father’s business and my studies, I came across a new habit of my mother, as we started taking care of each other.

In breaking her quietness rarely she used to hum a song –a tune, long one –but only 3 lines were the ones she used to sing, not hum. Those were:

Khamosh sa afsana,
Paani se likha hota.
Na tumne kaha hota,
Na maine suna hota.
Do naina, ek kahani,
Thoda sa kajal, thoda sa paani.

(A song of silence would have been written in water.
Neither u would’ve said it, nor would I’ve heard it.
Two eyes, one story, a little kohl, and some tears)

I loved to hear her. I was bothered by her silence…

One day it was raining and I was 23, listening to Careless Whispers, She was sitting at a little distance from me. I loved rain. It was dusk.

I looked at her- in the eyes. She was already staring at me. At that time I felt that suddenly my unconscious has awakened and somebody has spanked my ass.

I withdrew my eyes towards my work with my heart throbbing with blood.

I don’t remember what happened after that.

I got up and kissed my mother’s cheek and hugged her. A little astonished as she was, it was my first real physical contact with my mother. I wanted to do that. I could see her body shiver a little under that soft translucent sari cloth. I kissed her cheek again and this time closer to her lips, but not onto them. She stood up, shivering into a smile and started to go in her room. Before she vanished into her room, I told her, Mother, I love u! To which she exclaimed, Son, me too! I fell asleep on that sofa which still had warmth of her bums, feeling a sweet chill in me, a fresh tender one. Next morning I was awakened by shouts of the maid. Mother had committed suicide. Her pale body was hanging from the fan through that soft translucent sari.

At that point, I became half dead for my entire life. That humming passed through my ears like a wind for the last time, whose ‘ghost’ I could hear for my entire life.

I loved her !!!