SUMITRA BASU
Age: 67
Lives in: DL Block
On Mother’s Day: I know about it but since we haven’t grown up with the concept, feel awkward celebrating it. Rather than being wished once a year I appreciate it more that my children call me and WhatsApp me several times a day.
On my mother: My mother Tripti Palit was a fighter. She was born to a business family of Burdwan, married off at 18 but continued to study after marriage. She completed her IA (intermediate course) but I was born before she could complete her graduation. Still, she read extensively from my father’s library. But my father passed away unexpectedly when she was in her 40s. Back in the day, men would not leave anything behind in their wives’ name and she went through great hardships to bring up her children. I was already married by then but she ensured my brothers became a doctor and a chartered accountant.
A widow’s life was one of great penance. Ma lived till 80 but could never again taste fish, that she loved so much. She could eat rice just once a day, wore white saris with narrow borders but was thankfully allowed to retain her long hair. What hit her the most was going vegetarian. The lack of protein affected her bone density and she suffered from joint pain till her last day.
Nowadays women have a lot more freedom but I’m not sure we’re happier than our mothers. Those women had little but then they didn’t want much. We have many demands and get upset when they aren’t fulfiled.
Best thing you learnt from her: Ma always said: “Chhokher jol phelo na. Chhokher jol khub daami.” She was right. Crying is futile; one has to fight for justice. Now I am patron of an AIWC wing and her words ring in my mind whenever I’m out working for the needy.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: I would have taken her to Sarada Math. No matter how ill Ma was, her face always lit up at the mention of the place.
A gift you want from your children: Perfume from my son and stitching kit from my daughter. They always bring me such things when they come home.
MANJUSRI DASGUPTA
Age: 76
Lives in: AE Block
On Mother’s Day: My UK-based brother says it’s a big deal there but I think it’s more of a show. There are many who wish mothers once a year and neglect them the rest of the time.
On my mother: At a time when women were hardly sent to school, my mother Sova Sen and her elder sister were meant to study at Loreto and go to the UK for college. Their grandmother was a Matriculate and their father wanted them to be highly educated too. But he got kala-azar and died very young and his widow moved to her parents’ home in Dhaka to raise the kids.
Society was appaled that my grandmother wanted her girls educated. “Labonyo noshto hobe, biye hobe na,” they taunted, but my grandmother paid no heed. My aunt was gutsy too and shut the door on the face of a prospective groom at the age of 14, saying she would never marry. She didn’t. She studied and became a professor. My mother too completed her BA from Dhaka University.
Now it so happened that a highly eligible UK-returned bachelor of Jessore was on the look out for a bride at the time. His criteria was that the bride be tall, fair and BA pass. While the first two were a dime a dozen, no BA-pass lady was available in all of Jessore. Thus my father came to Dhaka to marry my mother in 1940.
People were very staunch about rituals then and at their bou bhaat my mother, who was from a non-kulin Brahmin family, wasn’t allowed to serve food to her in-laws, who were kulin. She always regretted this incident. But she was patient, adjusting and soon became popular in her in-laws’ place. She brought my brother and me up very well.
It will be Ma’s birth centenary on June 7 this year. We celebrated my father and father-in-law’s centenaries earlier and want to celebrate hers too, provided my own health permits. A few years ago my husband Kishori Mohan Dasgupta compiled a detailed family tree of his and my ancestors and we were shocked to note that most of our forefathers never even acknowledged the women. There is no record of the daughters or mothers who are so essential in keeping families together. We have included them all in our records and tried to give them their long-overdue respect.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: I would make her chutney. She wouldn’t eat non-vegetarian food after her husband passed away but she liked chutney.
MARIAM WALI
Age: 82
Lives in: CL Block
On Mothers’ Day: I’ve been hearing about this the last few years. My sons wish me too, the younger one from London, on WhatsApp.
On my mother: My mother was born to a rich business family in Delhi but they shifted to Calcutta for work. She was a good student but her family didn’t allow her to study beyond Class VI. She was married off to my father, a UK-returned Bengali barrister. Initially my mother grappled with cultural differences but soon she adapted.
She learnt Bengali and had a great collection of books. Saratchandra (Chattopadhyay) was her favourite. A European lady would teach her English when she was young so she knew English too. She had five children and was hell-bent on getting her daughters educated. My sisters and I went to convents and the younger two are now doctors while I was a geography teacher. I still remember the day I, her first born daughter, got my BA degree from Lady Brabourne College. My mother wept with joy. She told me that I had fulfiled a dream she had.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: I’ve written a book Ladies of Yore, on the progressive Muslim women around the time when Prophet Mohammed lived. I have dedicated the book to her as she always encouraged women to be able. She would be proud of me today.
ARUNDHATI MUKHERJEE
Age: 66
Lives in: CF
On Mother’s Day: I know it’s in May. I’ve been hearing about it for the last five years or so.
On my mother: My mother Swagata Banerjee was born to a very progressive family in Howrah. In those days, there were no girls’ colleges in Howrah and my grandfather, Pannalal Mukherjee, was most upset when my mother’s elder sister had no college to go to after she completed school. So he started what is now Howrah Girls’ College on the ground floor of their house with a handful of students including his daughter.
My mother completed her IA at this college, got married and moved to Patna. There she raised four children of whom I am the eldest. Ma would never sit idle. She would stitch, knit, read, tend to plants, decorate the house… I think every outfit we ever wore had been stitched by Ma. She was also my first dance teacher and encouraged me to learn the art.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: Sari. She liked receiving saris.
KUNTALA PATNAIK
Age: 62
Block: New Town, AC Block
On Mother’s Day: My son and daughter, both of whom live abroad, send me online presents on this day but I ask them not too. Wishing me is enough.
On my mother: My mother Brafulla Khattoi was born in Konark and since there weren’t any schools nearby a European lady would come and tutor her. She knew horse riding too. Later my grandfather started a school in their area so other girls could study.
My father had a transferable job and Ma travelled with him and their seven children. She was intelligent and would help us with all our schoolwork.
She loved gardening and all of us siblings have got green thumbs from her. She was also very helpful and generous. No one who came to her for help would get turned away, especially when it came to someone’s education. She always said that mass education is the secret to India’s progress.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: A sari.
SHILA MUKHERJEE
Lives in: HB Block
Age: 75
On Mother’s Day: I have heard of this but not sure where.
On my mother: I was 11 when my mother Jogamaya Banerjee passed away. That was 1952. I was brought up by my third sister I call Didi. The most vivid memory I have of Ma is of the day she died.
She had high pressure. A year before, when Didi was getting married, Ma had suffered a stroke. She was busy shaping sandesh for the wedding guests when she sensed something trickling down her nose. She took it to be snot and carried on, wiping it off from time to time with the end of her sari. A cousin entered the kitchen and screamed that there was blood trickling down her nose. Our local physician Jogesh babu came and started blood letting. A patharbati and half of blood was let out. This used to be the most effective treatment to reduce high blood pressure in those days. That day, Ma survived.
Of course, there was chaos in the wedding arrangements. So many guests left without eating. A lot of food went waste and was buried underground.
It was exactly a year later — possibly the day before Jamaisashthi. Father had left to fetch his second son-in-law and daughter. Our Mama, who lived right opposite our house, had been despatched to buy fish. Ma was feeling ill since morning but when the fish arrived she said she was feeling a bit better and would go down to supervise the cooking.
But she lost consciousness. One of our younger cousins was rushed to fetch ice from an ice factory we had near our house in Ranaghat. Didi came running from her in-laws in the same town. She fell in the rush to climb the stairs and the ice was used on both mother and her.
When my father reached, he asked Mejdi to tiptoe in so she could surprise mother. But Ma was already lying senseless. My youngest brother had gone to watch a movie in the gap after his Matric examination. Work was on for electricity connection in the house. In fact, the first day the lights came on was the day of my mother’s funeral rites.
Ma was 42 when she died. She was married at 12. Dada was born two years later. She bore 11 or 12 children. I was the youngest to live. Two or three born after me died very young.
She was always very properly dressed and had refined taste. Though she could not get her eldest daughters educated in school as Mama was deeply opposed to the idea, she made sure they picked up other skills. She would take our eldest sister to Palta to learn sewing from a teacher. She even kept a music teacher to train her fourth daughter but she had no talent for music.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: A cellphone. It would have helped her stay connected and also listen to music.
A gift I want from my children: Nothing. My son and daughter are busy with their lives far away. Mother’s Day would become popular here too as Calcutta, especially Salt Lake, is becoming like the West. No one stays with parents anymore. Like in the US, they would come to visit parents on this day.
SUSHILA KEJRIWAL
Age: 72
Lives in: CF
On Mother’s Day: I have heard of it, but we don’t observe it.
On my mother: My mother Ambika Bhawsinghka was born in Chhapra, Bihar. She and her sister were home-schooled by their father and they learnt Sanskrit. She got married at the age of 13 and moved to Calcutta and then Cuttack. We were seven siblings and though our father was strict with us, Ma loved us to bits.
She and her sister-in-law were great friends and they would spend their time cooking for the joint family, praying at the in-house temple and looking after us. My mother liked stitching and gardening.
She taught me not to waste money on unnecessary things and this is a practice I apply even today.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: She was content and hardly had any demands. Maybe I’d gift her a sari or shawl.
MADHURI DASGUPTA
Age: 83
Lives in: Purbachal, Cluster IX
On Mother’s Day: Mother’s Day is not something I’m used to, I read about it in papers nowadays and hear about it from my granddaughter.
On my mother: My mother hailed from Dhaka. She was a lively, soft spoken, kind-hearted woman who was way ahead of her times. My father was among the first Indian officers in the railways, which was known as the Great Indian Peninsular Railways in those days. He was posted in Dhund, a station near Bombay, where we lived.
I had four siblings — one sister and three brothers. My mother was an active member of the Red Cross Society. She used to hold meetings in our backyard regularly and organise functions with the wives of the Group D staff. Once she collected so much money for the Red Cross through one of these programmes that Lady Mountbatten herself came to Dhund to congratulate my mother and watched her programme!
My mother had graduated in Bengali from Eden College, Dhaka. She was also a great singer and was invited to record a song, which she was unfortunately not allowed to do. Stitching was her hobby and she, along with other women, used to embroider clothes and sell them to collect donations for the Red Cross Society.
Though we had a cook, she took care of the entire household.
When I was around nine years old, we had gone to Bangladesh during a vacation when my mother and brother got typhoid. We lost both of them, one day apart.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: My mother, on her death bed, had told me to take care of my siblings, now that I was the eldest daughter of the house. My youngest brother was barely one-and-a-half years old then. Throughout my entire school life, I had been his mother, carrying an extra pair of pants of his with me in case he soiled his. I have been successful too. All of them are well-settled today. This is my gift to her, fulfiling her unfinished work.
A gift I want from my children: I have always wanted a small cozy house to spend my life. My children have given me that. There’s nothing more that I could ask for.
KUMKUM RAY
Age: 73
Lives in: CD Block
On Mother’s Day: I read about it in the newpaper nowadays, but it is not celebrated in my family.
On my mother: My mother was from Dhaka and my father from Chittagong. My parents had settled in Giridih first, where I, and my two other sisters and brother were born. My father had a transferable job owing to which we had travelled a lot all over the state.
My mother was a very jovial woman who was not only an excellent cook but also a terrific artist. She would stitch and embroider clothes, and give them out to the poor.
My father was a freedom fighter, and my mother was a member of the ‘Mohila Samiti.’ She would invite women over for meetings and dinners, along with their husbands. She did this to improve the relations between estranged couples, hoping it would help them to witness the healthy relation that my parents had.
I was her secret-keeper. My father’s ancestral house used to host Durga puja but after he left home, he couldn’t be a part of that. So when he decided to start a Durga puja here, my mother supported him wholeheartedly. Though there was a cook, she wouldn’t rely on him.
My father wanted my mother to study further, but she couldn’t owing to her children and her family life. She loved socialising. I remember, when Father passed away, she didn’t even think of giving up non-vegetarian food. She used to say, “If you all can eat fish, why can’t I?” She knew the art of the perfect toss fry, and excelled at everything she laid hands upon.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: I would have given her an embroidered sari. She loved new saris and everytime someone gave her one, she would be so happy.
A gift I want from my children: The best gift my daughter can give me is to bring up my grandson well. I wish to see him grow up as a good human being and be established in life.
KAJAL ROY
Age: 75
Lives in: Karunamoyee, F Block
On Mother’s Day: I don’t know when it is but have heard about.
On my mother: My mother Sobhona Dasgupta had passed IA. Hers was a liberal family. Her eldest sister used to drive a car in Bombay. My mother got married at the age of 17. My eldest brother was born two years later. We are eight siblings.
My mother was the youngest daughter-in-law of a joint family of about 20 members in our Bondel Road house. When the riots broke out in Calcutta, my mother was sent off to my uncle’s house in Krishnanagar. I was born there.
In Bondel Road, two double beds were joined for my parents and seven of us to sleep on. My eldest brother had a separate bed. Often, we would wake up to see Ma lying horizontally at our feet. There would be no space left beside us when she came to sleep last.
We spent 10 years in Odisha when my father shifted because of work. All the schools were Oriya medium. So Ma homeschooled us, teaching Sukumar Roy’s Ha Ja Ba Ra La and Tagore’s Sahaj Paath and Sishu. She would tell us the same rhymes every other day yet we enjoyed them afresh every time.
At Bondel Road, while her sisters-in-law tended to the kitchen, my mother, as the youngest, was put in charge of the children of the house — all 17 of us including our cousins. She would get us bathed, prepare our school things, keep the shoes polished... Throughout our school and college years, she would tie the hair of us five sisters and our cousin sisters, asking each of us about our day — if we understood the day’s lessons in class, did well in tests, met friends...
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: She loved reading. The family subscribed to Basumati while Shuktara was taken for the children. So I would give her good books. She also loved flowers. She always asked me to bring tuberoses whenever she heard I was going to Gariahat. So flowers would be another gift I would get her. She was also a great seamstress. So she would enjoy a knitting kit too.
A gift I want from my children: Time. My daughter is busy, being the physics teacher at Sri Aurobindo Institute of Education. She stays in Sraboni Abasan and comes over sometimes.
ALPANA ROYCHOWDHURY
Age: 77
Lives in: Purbachal, Cluster IX
On Mother’s Day: I have two sons and a daughter, all settled abroad. On my visits there, I hear a lot about Mother’s Day. My children bring me small gifts and we all go out for dinner. But back here, Mother’s Day is a relatively new concept.
On my mother: My mother was a calm and composed woman. After marrying my father, who was a resident of Sambalpur, Odisha, they shifted there. She came from a very well off family, but not once did I hear her boasting of her family earnings to anyone. Though we had a cook to prepare food for the entire family, she was the one who used to take all the decisions. It was a joint family of 20 or 22. My mother had instilled a sense of discipline in all of us. We were seven brothers and two sisters, and I was the youngest sister. My mother used to pamper me a lot. When my elder sister used to visit us after her marriage, the three of us used to chat for hours.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: I would have loved to give her a finger ring that she would wear round the year. Every time I would see that, I would feel proud of being her daughter.
DOLLY BASU
Age: 62 Resident of: CF Block
On Mother’s Day: I heard of Mother’s Day eight years back. My eldest daughter Mallika had become a mother in London and her friends started wishing her. So she too sent me a Mother’s Day card. That’s how I learnt what Mother's Day was. I sent her a card too. Now I get such alerts on Facebook!
Frankly for us Indians, every day is Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I don’t see what there is to celebrate. Maybe it works in the western world to have such occasions where they come to meet the parents once in a while.
On my mother: My mother Shyama Wahi is now 85. She divides her time between my house and my brother’s in Alipore. She kept a beautiful house. She was obsessed with cleanliness. The cover on the fridge was hand-embroidered by her. She was very houseproud. Though there were just the four of us we had relatives staying over all the time at our Diver Lane house. She was also very strict. If she said “Abhi nahane jana hai”, I had to go take a bath there and then. Even if I was reading a book and was at a critical juncture there could be no waiting.
When my marriage was fixed the first thing that crossed my mind was no one will tell me when to eat or sleep!
Birthdays were for children. My brother and I got a book and a new dress. There were no cakes. Blowing out candles was not taken as an auspicious sign. Parents never celebrated birthdays in our family. Their day was the anniversary. Father would buy mother a sari and all the women would discuss for hours who among the men had the best taste in sari selection.
In fact, my own birthday in my adult life came to the fore when little Mallika approached a friend of mine who made cakes at home with a 25p coin from her piggy bank, asking if she could make one for me! She would also force her father (Chandan Basu) to get me a gift but mostly it was done by his secretary or purchase officer. Nothing of the romance of my parents’ anniversary gifts was there in it.
We travelled a lot. Every summer would be spent in a hill station near Delhi and every winter in Puri. We also went out on long weekends. My father had a Morris Minor and we would pack an electric kettle, a pack of cards, two mattresses and drive off to Maithon or some such getaway.
A Mother’s Day gift I wish I could give her: She is still fond of eating but doesn’t like to go out much. She would rather have me cook something at home. Perhaps a full day’s company would be the gift she would enjoy most. There is so much to do (with the shooting of Basu’s ongoing serial Radha on Zee Bangla and the upcoming production of her theatre group Choopkatha) that I cannot give her as much time as I’d want to.
A gift I would want from my children: At our age, all we want is to spend time with family. My daughters are all settled abroad — Mallika and Bithika are in London, the second one Juthika is in Bangkok.
INTERVIEWS BY BRINDA SARKAR, SHREYA CHATTERJEE AND SUDESHNA BANERJEE
Are you a senior citizen with a mother who has led an extraordinary life?
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