ma / a portrait from memory.

I left home for college back in 2012, and since then, only visited routinely, typically no longer than a week or ten days. Now, in 2020, amidst a world scrambling to process this strange time, I decide to look inwards.

During my over two months at home with Ma, I focus on my memory of her. Through old photographs scattered around the house and details that feel familiar, I piece together a portrait of my mother as I've known her through the years, from memory.

Indore, May 2020.

Ma is incredibly proud of her garden. She likes sitting here, spending some time in the morning sun before the day gets busy.

Her love of gardens, and their significance to her idea of home, goes back to her ancestral home in Allahabad. It had a wild, sprawling, front lawn — one that often features in anecdotes and old black and white photos of family occasions. It’s also where Ma spent a lot of time with her mum, my naani, sowing seeds and watering plants. Her stories, would often feature Sarju, their mali (gardener) prominently - a tall, burly man who would humour a tiny, curious Ma as she went around digging through mud and playing in the sun on many a lazy day. To Ma, the outdoors is where memories of family time, adventure, and curiosity found a home.

Every time I’m back home, she excitedly talks about (and proudly shows off) new plants she’s picked up, either from the local nursery or a supplier who wheels them around on a cart. Over the years, Ma's filled up our garden with a tulsi plant, creepers, some aloe vera, and thick, green grass that Google, our cat, likes to explore.

To the left: a painting by Ma that she’s quite proud of, and to the right: an old sketchbook filled with pencil sketches and recent doodles, here in Indore, which is one of my first, most vivid memories of Ma’s talents in the form of a portfolio.

She learned how to draw and sketch when she was very young. Perhaps she got it from my naani, who was an exceptional painter in her own right. I discovered a lot of Ma’s work - primarily done through the 1980s - as frames that occupied almost every room in her ancestral home in Allahabad. These were paintings that took inspiration from photographs she saw in magazines and newspapers routinely. It took me some time to finally pause and understand that these paintings and sketches were also a form of preserved memory - a creation from a time gone by, produced by a person who made them at a time when I didn’t even exist. I would often stare deep into these paintings, trying to stumble into a world of the past hidden behind individual strokes and patches of colour.

I grew up with Ma’s handwriting all around me. I’ve seen her as a teacher and school principal — and that often involved watching her make class notes and lesson plans, and marking answer sheets she would sometimes bring back home. Over the years, her handwriting became a distinct, identifiable reminder of her personality. There are bits of it all over the house — in old notebooks, diaries and even in old photo albums that she’s meticulously captioned. Thus, it felt right to have her write something about a photograph she likes.

Now that I think about it, her handwriting feels like another version of her — it’s as if it has a life of its own and carries within its jumpy strokes humor, delight, anger and familial comfort.

Ma joined the school I was studying at as a teacher, and eventually became the Principal.

Getting ready every morning meant seeing her dress up in a saree. I’d see her pick the colours diligently, and choose what saree to wear based on the fabric that was best for the weather. Perhaps it stood out because I still had to wear the same school uniform everyday while she got a chance to choose from so many colourful options. I liked it best when she wore really bright colours like lively yellows and reds, but she usually preferred something more muted. It’s only much later — when I went to college and felt homesick for the first time — that I realised I missed seeing Ma in a saree every morning. I thought it was a strange thing to miss since she had quit school and we had moved cities even before I went to college — but there was a nostalgic comfort in the memory of us going to school together, a memory built around us and her beautiful sarees.

“Happy feet.”

In many ways, Google has been Ma’s constant companion, all the more so after I moved out in 2012.

Dad is not home except on the weekends since work keeps him away - so Google and Ma often have no one else but just each other for company through the week. Ma’s morning routine - even during this lockdown - has the both of them spend some time in the garden and bask in the warm sun. This is of course after he wakes her up every morning by poking his little wet nose in her face at 6 AM, demanding food. A lot of her quiet time with self actually involves spending hours doing her own thing - watching television, drawing something, or reading, with Google sleeping around or on her blissfully. Throughout the day, they often make routine conversations, which is mostly Ma listening to him reassuredly as he meows in an oddly matter-of-fact tone. They also step out for a walk in the evening to get some fresh air. Google, on a leash, trots along excitedly, exploring the lane outside or our backyard, with Ma following compliantly. At the end of a regular day, Google is often curled up in Ma's lap as she drifts off to sleep watching television, though I wonder how much of what's on is understood by Google. They share something wonderfully strange and routine - like roommates, except one of them is a cat.