'Eendra polithin peridhuvakum thanmahanai Saandroon enakketta thai'
"The mother who hears her son called "a wise man" will rejoice more than she did at his birth."
Well, as this happens to be my first ever blog post, something instigated me to write something about the person who brought me into this world. Most of you would not even know her if I won't tell you about her. But her story needs to be told. I would rather put this way, her struggle needs to be told. Yes, she was a struggler, a struggler who has struggled till this moment and still struggling.
She was the second of the three daughters born to Dr. Muthu Koya and Saliha Beevi. Her dad was a freedom fighter and a doctor in a very ordinary village in very remote India. She was three, when her dad kicked the bucket and her mom had nothing left except her three daughters, a house, a small hut and some 100 coconut trees. Just imagine, how much her mom would have suffered to grow up the three daughters. She had to make do on less income(from leasing the coconut trees and renting the other small hut), and thus somehow trying to make the ends meet. The entire credit goes to her mom who made her and the other daughters study even in the state of acute pain. Now coming back to her. Her village had only primary school after which one needed to go to nearby town for study. She left her family, stayed up in hostel, strived hard and finally achieved what she wanted. Yes. She was the topper of the school and her mom fostered her education by sending her to the college. I am floored when I think about this. People even now, in towns make a girl marry when she attains her puberty and gosh imagine some 35 years back and that too in a remote village, where an illiterate mother sends her daughter for higher studies. It startles me everytime.
She got a seat in a medical college but was forced to join science just because of her family's financial status. She completed her bachelors in maths, never gave up and did her masters in the same stream. She was able to secure a job of a lecturer in a govt. arts college and life became a little steady. She was the sole source of income for the family until her younger sister went to work. It was the most toughest task for her mom to make her three daughters get married. Again she was the last one to get married and this new guy, her hubby, was also a lecturer but from commerce stream. They were happily married and she gave birth to a prince and a princess. She tried everything possible to make her children well educated and self-dependant.
She started her doctorate studies in computational mathematics in 2000 and I must mention her struggles here. Well, I am just 22 and I find it extremely intractable to travel to my office which is just 14 kms away but she travelled all the way from my native to chennai which is almost 120kms by train and would return back home on the same day, three or four days a week to do her research. This is just one of her endeavors and I have no words to describe her effort to complete her research. It was 12th august 2008, when she was acclaimed the most prestigious Doctorate degree by the Madras University and I saw the pride, the joy, the feeling of accomplishment of her life's ambition in her face, holding the degree but it was filled with humility.
She beavered away for eight long years for this doctorate, she beavered away her entire life and now the whole world knows her as Dr. Humrosia Begum, my mother and my friend. I'm fortunate that I was born to someone like you mom. You are simply the best. You are the most humble and straightforward person I have ever met and I am very proud to say that you are my 'mother' and my everything. You might not be an important person to anybody else but your character and your life will always remain my guiding spirit.
குறிப்பு :- என் தாயை பற்றி என் தாய் மொழியில் கூற இயலாவில்லையே என்ற வருத்தம் என் மனதில் இருந்து கொண்டே தான் இருக்கிறது.
Comments are welcome. :)
