On a return trip to the site from our head office, a colleague and I were gazing at the skies from the busy Mumbai roads on which we were cruising. Barely an year old in the bustling city, I was yet to soak in the pulse of the city. There were large hoardings along the road advertising soap operas. Movies, cars, consumables, real estate, I can understand. But soap operas? Those cry-fest, close-up-shot infested Indian ones?

I turned to her and asked, “I’ve never seen this scale of marketing for soap operas back in my city, why do they do this, who has time for so much TV?”. “House wives kya karte hai?” came the reply from the mother of a three-year-old. I was astonished, hearing it come from her. My mind immediately flashed a picture of my mother; a home-maker and a proud one at that. Somebody who puts one 100% into whatever she does and gives it her all, her actions have been a source of inspiration to me.

The health and mental well-being of our family is in the hands of my mother – she is the centrifugal force that keeps us from drifting away. The way she cooks, how she cares about the nitty-gritty of every ingredient that goes into what she makes, blows my mind. I have a perception that cooking is an extremely stressful exercise – thanks to you Mom! – but that’s not how she does it. Her advice to me has always been this: enjoy what you are doing. And by God, she lives by it.

An erstwhile school teacher, she now divides her time between managing the dynamics of the abode, taking tuitions and craft classes for children from our apartment complex, practising crafts, painting, clay modelling and volunteering at a government school. A stupendous multi-tasker! She always looks out for interesting things and maintains unrelenting excitement in augmenting knowledge in her fields of interest.

Through her I have also come to learn that spirituality is not about going to temples once a week, singing bhajans or watching ‘bhakti’ channels. It is about the way you live your everyday life – not so much preacher, but a practitioner. She is always bubbling with ideas. These words are a tribute to this woman… I am her son. She is my Hero.

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