A letter from Varun my youngest twin on my retirement. When so many of my students are sharing their experience and emotions on Facebook, I thought I should also share this letter, which I had kept close to my heart. I had come back from my morning walk on 30th June and when I opened my phone, I saw a mail from my youngest twin and I shed a tear or two. As the most mischevious and a very independent person with a mind of his own, he had troubled me a lot for he refused to toe the line. I still remember that in class one or two, when he would learn out loud a wrong spelling and I would correct him and ask him to learn the correct spelling, he would tell me go and teach this in your University to your students. This is what my teacher taught me and this is what I will learn and kept repeating out loudly the wrong spellings, much to my great dismay and agony.
I was composing this email for a while in my head. I did not know where to start. But they say its best to start at the beginning. I can’t tell where the story of your career begins. But for me, you were always a teacher before a mother.
You have had a brilliant career, with all of its most significant challenges obliterated. I cannot speak for Bittu and Tarun much but out of my own experiences. I still remember the days when you used to carry me to your office when I was sick or had a fever, and I lay down on two chairs pulled together. I still remember playing with the water kettle in your office and looking at all the fancy stationery in your office with curiosity as if it was some new technology. The most pungent memory is the one of that stinking men’s bathroom that was a few doors away from your office in the old historic building. I remember you running to the bus station, to the auto stand, to Abids, to my school, to the top of the slope near the main road when I didn’t come home on time:(. I made you run so much you had to get your knees replaced (Sorry, but I am a good kid now).
Good Times, huh!... Any way Mummy, I am trying to keep this short, but congratulations
on this lifetime achievements. I don’t have the exact numbers, but with close to 20 books published and numerous other publications, you are a true epitome of a small-town girl who made it big in this wide world. If a feminist is someone who supports equal rights to women, then you are an epitome of I-Feminism. I hope you inspire countless girls and women in India and around the world like you have inspired me, your own son. Maybe I got the competitive nature to be the best of the best from papa, but it was chivalry and panache I believe I got from you. The real purpose of life is to pass on knowledge and experiences since you have been in academia all your life I would recommend you write your own memoir and to help you start here is a title Rekha: A-line between career, motherhood, and feminism. (We will talk about this I have a software I will install that will type as you speak)
Anyways, I know you might feel nervous or scared (maybe a wrong choice of words). But as always, you have papa by your side through thick and thin and all the noise he makes (LOL). You have three brilliant sons. Who are steadfast and strong? Congratulation on your retirement. We all love you.
Now come to Connecticut and stay in your house, your room is ready.
No comments:
Post a Comment