Character

by Medha Acharya (India)

A leap into the unknown India

She was napping, her head rested on window panel, shadows of palm trees forming zigzag patterns over her face. My brother was in her lap, his mouth half-open. I had promised my mother that I will take her to goa when I will get my first salary. Now after 4 months of my joining and canceling almost 2 times, we finally made it there after 27 hours of an interesting but tiresome train journey. I woke my mother up. "Come on, the beach is still 500 meters.” I bought some sweet corn from the vendor sitting there and passed them to my brother. My mother was at some distance from us. She turned back and yelled, "I am going for a dip." "Ok." I sat alongside my brother, who was busy making some kind of face on the sand and using corn to make eyes on that face. “I don’t think we should spend that much money on her education. Girls are better married off at earliest.” My father’s words rang in my ears. She came out of the water and sat on the shore, streams of drops of water looking like shining rivers on her neck. She was smiling contently and looking at the horizon where the sea and sky were meeting like the molten sapphire. She looked towards us and nodded. I smiled back. My brother dozed off as soon as we reached our homestay. I put him in the cot and turn on the AC. My mother was walking outside looking at Mandovi river flowing steadily and peacefully except for occasional splashes. At night, I woke up at a slow hum and found my mother trying to listen to something. "What happened, Ma?" "shh!!" She whispered, trying not to wake my brother up, "Listen to the sound of crickets!" "Yeah?" "We never hear them anymore at home!" I looked at my mother’s brown-green eyes and hugged her tightly. In the morning, we were still playing outside when I saw my mother waving at us from distance. She was wearing a white top and blue denim. We went to Reis Magos fort, which was a prison in colonial times and was renovated recently. “Why you can’t cover your head whenever you go out? Both mother and daughter are hell-bent on ruining my reputation and this household”. My father's words echoed in my ears as I run my fingers over the walls of jail’s barrack. We reached Arambol beach just in time for sunset. I and my brother sat on the beach sipping ice candy and eating crispy corn. My mother fasts on full moon days. The sea roared and roared as the tides went high and low. Suddenly, She dropped her dupatta and walked towards the sea. Red-orange purple hues of sunset blended into the color of bruises of her heart. I looked above at the trembling sky, and then at my mother, the depth of sea seemed to match with depths of her loneliness. My mother raised us alone, without any support from our father, and she was never sorry about her decision. The amber-orange color of sunset was like her pure but fierce character, having enough power to melt those chains of patriarchy that had kept her beneath for so long. The moon was a bit bigger and brighter that night as my mother sat to open her fast. My mother was only 20 when she wanted to go to goa. After 25 years and despite being a single mother of two kids, she didn't forget her dream destination. Every place we went, she collected souvenirs as though she was taking a piece of that part of goa with her. Her happiness was everywhere; I heard it when she was humming lata's song; I smelled it when she put jasmine gajra in her hair; I saw it she slept peacefully at dawn; I felt it when she touched Brahma Kamal, a flower which only blooms at midnight. I now understand why she sent me on my first trip when I was 20. My mom is my inspiration for all my endeavors