Please read the first part here.
My mother was a professor of English.She was a beautiful woman but her beauty was never noticed;not because of some sinister reason but because her charm preceded everything.She dressed simply but elegantly.When she spoke,people especially men were mesmerized by her voice.She was a woman of the world,rich in her ideas and expressive of her opinions.Her father was a poet,a man of great intellect and passion.His mention is necessary only to enunciate my mother's genetic inheritance.I know nothing about her mother.She was a fantastic woman and i loved her more than anything in the world.Not once did i ever tell her this.
She met her husband at one of the famous cocktail parties hosted by the literary who's who of Delhi at Le Meridian.Her husband was there by chance,he was neither an author nor a poet.In fact he possibly had never read a literary novel,the only books he read were pseudo imitations of Harvard returned good for nothing management blokes.I still wonder why she married him.Certainly he was rich,he was rich and a self made man,a rare combination but still he would never accept the fact that his mother married her husband for money.She was beyond all that,she was divine.
They married a month later.I was born a year later.Her husband dealt in some shady businesses involved in international crediting.He was insecure of my mother's circle of friends.They were an intellectual lot and always made him feel greatly insignificant.He grew angry and frustrated.He cut off my mother from the world she loved.She started withering away,away from her literary pursuits but she would not leave him.I guess she didn't want me to grow up without a father.I would have been better without him.I will not do injustice to her husband and claim that he did not love me or my mother.He did but sometimes love is not enough to sustain a relationship.Understanding is often the key to a happy marriage but unfortunately her husband never understood this.My mother felt incomplete without her traveling and literary socializing.She immersed herself in her reading and maintained a facade of happiness but i could always sense her unhappiness.She seemed distant and away from the simple pleasures of life.She was hollowed,hollowed by the society her husband gave her.She was my mother and she was rotting before my eyes.I was old enough to sense her discomfort.We lived a life of luxury,a life of unchallenged bliss but i knew the truth.The truth that my family was a hollow framework of broken dreams and mismatched love.
I was sent to England to study.It was my last semester and i missed my mother.I hadn't talked to her for a while and it constantly ached my heart.Two days before my exams were to begin,i got a phone call from home.My mother was no more.
