As I find myself sitting with Seema, an old friend of mine, in her lawn and chatting over a cup of chai, I still wonder if this was true.  This was something that I had been longing to do since a long time.  My busy life with work, children and household has engulfed my time so much that I hardly get time to catch up with my friends.  But, despite the excitement, I was not enjoying this to the fullest.  Maybe because at the back of my mind, I was still disturbed with the small tiff I had with my mother before starting for my friend’s place.  I realized I had gone a little too far inadvertently and had been harsh towards my mother and that guilt would now not let me enjoy this time.

My mother and I had landed at my grandparents’ home two years after my grandmother’s demise to treat ourselves with a two-day break from our routine lives.  The joy of moving around the same places where I had once played when I visited my grandmother as a child and the calmness and the peace of the village filled my heart with bliss.

Today was the second day, and we spent the afternoon looking at some old family photographs.  There were photos from past few decades, through generations, through evolutions in clothes, hairstyles, home décor, technology, and through evolutions in photography.  One more thing notable in the photos was how beautiful and cheerful my grandmother looked when she was young and all her children lived with her and how miserable she looked with each passing year that she could not spend with any of her children.

I casually told my mother, “If grandma could read, she could at least spend time reading books, newspapers, and she could as well write to us and read our letters, isn’t it Mom?” that is how it started.  Mom replied, “Hmm..you are right. She would not have to live in melancholy if she could read, but women those days were forbidden education.”

“That is where women go wrong, passively accepting what comes to them from the society.  I mean why didn’t she go against the society and learn to read and write?” said I, though I could sense the change in my tone.

“It wasn’t so easy dear. And how would she learn?  Girls were not allowed into the school.”  Mom replied.  I debated, “If one wants to achieve something, he or she will find a way, Mom.  Look at me.  Was it easy for me to get to this position in my job without me fighting the circumstances?  Even I have a household, children, …”  That is when I realized I am going too far, but my mother did not speak a word but just looked at me and dropped her gaze.  She dropped me at my friend’s home on her way to shopping and was to pick me up after an hour.

After spending more than an hour with my friend, I called my mom to pick me up, but she told me she has to get the groceries for the dinner and would not be back before sunset.  She asked me to take the shortcut from my friend’s home and reach my grandmother’s home by walk.

I started walking in the direction that my mother suggested, but there was no path, it was filled with bushes and rocks.  I called my mother again and told the same thing and came the reply, “It is easier to walk if somebody has paved the way for you, isn’t it?”