(Borrowed from Rajinder Raina. Badi Amma seems to be the story of my mother-like relation) Badi Amma Badi Amma has replaced the name of our grandmothers especially in the families that pretend to be affluent ones and switched over to Hindi language in UP-Kashmiri mixed dialect. In the valley they were known as kakeni-Jiger or Kakenie or Benidedh or Babi and a little earlier as Dedh. Three of my aunts were Benidedh, Heidedh and Divdedh. Generally the more they advance in age, the more they lose authority and respect. Mother of one has no option while the mother of many generally gets divided amongst her many. Mother of many has no home. She is cautious, lest the other should get offended. She prefers to avoid the word ‘Gharea’ especially in exile. She names her dwelling as ‘Roshan Laluen or Chuni Laluen’ by the name of her sons. If settled in any cosmopolitan city like Delhi, Mumbai, and Chandigarah..... her vulnerability is directly proportional to the rental value of the room in her occupation. Her prolonged age beyond the average life span in India is an additional worry to her family members and their relations. One professor of repute in the society expressed his anguish over the longevity of one Badi Amma in his relation. “Wonder! She must have drunk potion to become immortal” he expressed in despair! One such Badi Amma is almost confined to her room lest the obnoxious treatment she meets become public. Early sixties the Budi Amma finally succeeded in persuading her husband to close his business and join her only son somewhere away in Punjab. While in the valley, she had plenty for the smallest unit to live a luxurious life. She would often mock at her cousins who used to mix enough water to yoghurt worth two annas to suffice a family of nine. Sarcastically she used to say: “Ye ne banus larie su katie larie panus”. In her nineties, Badi Amma is mentally and physically fit. She walks about two to three km everyday to and fro to the nearby temple. Devotees around touch her feet to get blessed. Know not why their respect for the Badi Amma should offend her daughter-in-law who too is grandmother of a score of grandchildren from her siblings. 2009, her son and his wife resumed their talk Bwith her after six moths lest they get exposed in presence of one of their relations. Her revelation was mistakenly taken as brain delirium due to her advanced age, but soon her son and his wife removed the misconception when they justified their act as their reaction to the allegation that she was hurling curses on their son with the action of crossing her palms, known as ‘lelivetear’. (Rattan Lal in Kakenie & Veith also accused his mother of ‘lelivetear’ for his son. Know not why all delinquent sons have the same excuse for mal treatment for their parents) Badi Amma habitually used to have her meals in her room. One evening her only son notified an order: “Badi Amma is directed to have her meals in the dinning-hall.” To break his mother the Hitler rightly presumed as to how long Badi Amma would resist her hunger. He was right; Badi Amma could not resist her hunger for long. She in utter humility came out of her shell and obeyed the directions of the dictator, who in his childhood had enjoyed all the privileges, the only son in a well-to-do family is expected to. Once her granddaughter-in-law asked her mother-in-law to call Badi Amma to share sweet dish; in response she said: “Our munching of sweets is more than a call to her. She will come soon”. And the mother-in-law was right. One evening Badi Amma was not called to join the family dinner. She waited and finally gave in and went to the kitchen. She was shocked to see that everybody had gone to their respective bedrooms and her share of chapattis was packed in a plastic container. Despite acute hunger, she abandoned her dinner, spent sleepless night empty stomach. Next morning she woke up from a wet pillow. The Badi Amma is not a solitary stigma of abandonees in our ideal society a civilization of 5000 years. There are many Papa ji; Dadhoo, Buday Papa and Lalea who meet the same treatment as that of Badi Amma. One abandoned father of three well to do sons asked me for the reason of his agony when he owns a house, has pretty enough to spend with a recurring hansom pension after his retirement. I preferred to avoid response rather than to reply haywire though I knew the reason was nothing short of Newton’s Third law of Motion. Beware! Punkaj, the social activist is watching the society. His heavy hammer does not believe in sycophancy and ostrich character. It pains me to cite another example of maltreatment of the parents in laws, by their young daughter- in- law (after influencing her husband & only son of the parents) to persuade them for living with them at Mumbai, after disposing the newly built house in Sharika vihar,Jammu. She brought some gifts & dresses for both parents in laws, thus gaining their confidence in her( that they shall be looked after better in Mumbai) the house was sold & the son deposited the proceeds of the house in his own account, all of them left for Mumbai. But shortly after they lived in Mumbai, the son took up a job in some gulf county & dispatched his parents back to Jammu, where both parents are now living hand to mouth on old mans pension, as tenets in a poorly ventilated dwelling. Writing about these odds in Kashmiri community is to bring in the attention of the young readers. that they too shall all be subject to this sort of humiliating treatment by their siblings in their old age if they do not care for their elders, thus set an example for their kids for their care in turn for them, in old age.. THIS IS A NATURAL LAW, WHICH I BELIEVE IN. Readers, shall recall that some years back, THE WOODEN BOWL STORY ,made a few rounds in this August forum wherein the parents serve their old father in a wooden bowl. ErRajinder Raina. pittsburgh,USA
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 19:17:06 +0000
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