Mom's Tools

Sarada,who was six and a half decades old, was sitting on the floor staring at her hands.She could no longer sit on the hard wooden swing set on the balcony. Not wanting to disturb her, Smitha asked her if she was okay.

"Yes, I am fine, Smitha.Thank you for asking", said her mom in a feeble voice.

"Do you ever look at your hands"?asked Sarada.

Smitha stared at her hands, turning the palms up and down.It is time to get a manicure,thought Smitha. But she couldn't get the point her mom was trying to make.

"Stop and think for a while how your hands have served you well through the years. These are the tools that I have had to embrace life, though they have become shriveled,wrinkled and bony through the years.

When I was a little girl, I held on to my mom with these hands as she spent her day toiling around the house. As a child, my father taught me to fold them while saying slokas.

I then learnt to use the wood stove to cook by pushing the firewood with these hands. Later, when I married, I used these hands to cook for all the extended family on your father's side. When I visited my parents, my father, would hold these roughened hands and shed tears that his bright daughter's life is spent doing all the manual work like pulling water from the well. No lotion could soothe those hands the way my father's tears soothened them.

These were the hands that wrote letters to your father when he served in the military. Later, I held you, your brothers and your cousins with these hands.

Once, when a robber paid an unexpected visit, these were the hands that gave him a blow on his head.

These are the hands that have held my grandchildren, nursed a daughter in law back to health, and shook in fists of anger at atrocities in life.

Most importantly, these hands are the ones that my SriRama would hold and lead me to his home", said Sarada picking up the notebook to write her daily quota of SriRamaJayam on it.

Smitha forgot all about her wanting to fix an appointment to the manicurist, and held her mom's hands in awe and tears in her eyes.