Shunned And Abused, My Mother Escaped To Return For Me In India

When I began my career at 20 in India, I had lofty goals. I wanted to be so rich that I could set up and manage homes for abandoned children and take care of them. I don't know if I am changing the world, but I believe in the adage: every drop of water makes the mighty ocean.

After quitting my corporate career over two decades ago to become a freelancer, I often lacked the guts to ask the market price for my services. I would always fear that I might lose work with my asking price, which was pathetically low. Also, my inner critic was alive and well on a shiny throne, always asking, are you good enough?

Fear is a powerful thing that plays on our insecurities. When I struggled with this, my mom urged me to remember my goals at 20. At that moment, I felt stronger and pledged to donate a portion of my earnings to charity. And that has kept me motivated and going.

We’ve made it a practice in our family to celebrate every occasion or festival by donating to the underserved homes in our area, and also treating them to breakfast or lunch. We don’t need a special occasion to do that, I know, which is why I have made it my mission to support underprivileged children.

Every once in a while we show up at one of the homes to spend time with the children and hang around at dinner time and as I watch them eat, my heart bursts with emotion. I feel fortunate to be alive. I feel a deep sense of gratitude that I can make even a tiny difference in their lives.

I remember the first time I visited this particular home, which had around eighty girls ranging from age four to sixteen.

This home took in babies abandoned at their door by destitute women who had no means of support.

Shunned and Abused, My Mother Escaped To Return For Me

Photo: Pixabay/Pexels

We had arranged dinner that evening. As soon as the dinner bell rang at 8 pm, we went to the dining area to join the fifty-eight children sitting on the floor in two rows. There was a prayer room with an altar at the far end and the fragrance of incense filled the place.

Just then, the children began singing their prayers. As they sang, a couple of the older girls started placing steel plates in front of them. This was followed by two more girls serving the rice.

Next, these girls brought sambhar, a kind of mixed stew with lentils and vegetables, and began to serve that. I was pleased to see them asking the little ones where they wanted the stew. Some wanted it on the rice, some wanted it by the side, and some wanted it partially on the rice and partly near it. The affection in the atmosphere was tangible and that made me feel good.

In a few minutes, the girls had finished serving the food. Another short prayer later, the children began to eat.

I always feel choked with emotion when I hear children sing in a group and try hard to hold back the tears, much to my son’s amusement. When I saw them eagerly eat their food, I just couldn’t control myself. How happy they were with so little!

I thought of how lucky I was, to stand there, clothed, fed, and with a loving family of my own. I thought of my mom who had suffered so much and somehow managed to give us both a decent life.

A medley of thoughts swirled in my head. It is very sobering to think that I could have been one of them, abandoned or lost. I could have very well ended up in an orphanage, or worse, trafficked when I was just over two years old. That day in my life is etched on my soul. I have always found it strange how clearly I could remember it in minute detail.

The year was 1965.

I was two years old. My mother and I lived in Delhi at her in-laws’ place, as is the custom in India. Odd that I never thought of them as my grandparents.

I will never understand why my mother was married at thirteen to a man who did not want her. Almost everyone in that family treated her badly, often with violence, and yet my mother always put up with the abuse.

Decades later, when I questioned her about it, she said she had promised her dying father that she would not complain, no matter what. My biological father left for the US shortly before I was born and never returned to us. He settled there with an American wife and had another daughter.

Yet, after he left, rather than send my mother off to her mother’s house, her in-laws insisted she stay with them — another thing I’ll never understand since they were never kind to her. But perhaps that was the purpose?

Again, decades later, I learned that the reason was vengeance on the part of Mom’s mother-in-law.

Many atrocities later, Mom was dumped in a mental health institution by her mother-in-law. Fortunately, a kind doctor there helped her escape. And she returned home. Her mother-in-law did not allow her to enter the house.

I remember, when Mom almost limped to the door, I was sitting outside on the doorstep wearing a white linen chemise. I was overjoyed to see her back, naturally. Her absence at home was distressing.

Shunned and Abused, My Mother Escaped To Return For Me

Photo: Bhavyata Nimavat/Pexels

My grandfather took pity on us and hurriedly rushed Mom and me to the railway station, and put us on a train to Mumbai, where my maternal grandmother lived. Soiled and exhausted, we were off, hopefully on our way to safety.

Through the two-night journey on the train, Mom’s health was sinking. The mental hospital had infused some gas through her mouth that made her gums bleed. I remember hugging her tight.

We didn’t have anything to eat on the journey and managed with a pot of water that a co-passenger was kind enough to give us, along with a small pack of biscuits. I have a clear memory of a nosebleed. Another co-passenger gave me a cut onion to hold against my nose to stop the bleeding.

Somehow, we made it to Mumbai, our destination, where we got off the train. I held on to the little pot of water for dear life and remember refusing to let go of it.

As we got off the train, Mom suddenly collapsed on the railway platform. A crowd quickly gathered as I stood by and cried.

Then a miracle happened.

Divine help arrived in the form of my uncle, my mom’s brother. He commuted to work via this major railway station. Much later in life, I would hear stories of him from the street people and the homeless that he helped over the decades, in cash or kind.

When he saw the crowd gathering, he naturally rushed over to see what was happening. Imagine his shock when he realized that the battered and bleeding form lying there was his little sister. As he looked around to see if anyone was with her, he spotted me, his favorite niece, sobbing quietly, tears streaming down my face.

He quickly got us into a taxi and took us home. I remember he held me close with one arm, whispering soothing words in my ear, his other arm around Mom.

Once we got home to my grandma, Mom was rushed to the hospital. I was bathed and fed. Mom was in the hospital for a few days until she regained consciousness and was brought back home, to be nursed back to health.

I often wonder, what if my uncle had not turned up that day? What if someone else, someone not very nice, had found us and taken us away first? What if no one had helped us? What if Mom had not recovered?

Such scary thoughts. They still haunt me sometimes. The subconscious mind can be so dominant.

Shunned And Abused, My Mother Escaped To Return For Me In India

I'm grateful for my mother's actions every single day.

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