There is very less that I, a man can write about motherhood. All that I can write about is from watching and admiring the strongest woman I’ve ever known for twenty-four years. For twenty-four years and counting she has played the role of a father as well as a mother. My mother was born in 1972 and all that I know about her childhood is from the stories she and my grandmother have shared with me. My grandmother always described her as a sweet-natured and obedient child, who grew up to be a diligent and brilliant student. A prowess for writing was something she had developed in her early years and being a quiet child by nature, writing was an ideal medium of expression for her. Her favorite subject has always been English Literature and her favorite writers were the Romantics—Shelley, Byron, and Keats although she does enjoy her fair share of Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.

Even when relatives flooded our household or the neighbors huddled together in the living room to watch television, as our household was the only one with a television at that time, my mother would be curled up in her study with a cup of tea and a good book. The only times she tuned into the television were when India’s cricket matches were broadcasted. She was an avid Kapil Dev fan and although she was only six years old when India won the World Cup, she did not miss a single match. Her fondness for cricket was not just limited to the television screen. She was the only girl in the neighborhood to join the boys in the local field for cricket. From what I hear, she was an excellent off-spin bowler. In the locality she was affectionately called "Neri", which in Bengali refers to a bald girl, as she was a big fan of shaving her head. She used to say that long hair made her hair sweat and that was a cultural shock for many mothers and girls during that time, but my grandmother had no qualms about it.

An ardent follower of literature and cricket during her youth, she also took great care of her only younger sister. Being eight years older, my mother served as the protective elder sister figure for my aunt, and she meant the whole world to her. The kind of affection we feel for someone younger is a very different kind of sentiment than the kind of love we have for our peers and elders. That kind of fondness has that overarching drive to be protective and shield our young loved one from the cruel world. In a way my aunt was the only one to feel that form of love from my mother before me.

Tragedy struck the Sarkar household when my grandfather passed away in 1995 leaving behind a wife and two young daughters. As he was the sole earning member of the family and left behind no inheritance, 1995 marked the beginning of our family’s financial struggle. It was during this inopportune moment that the most dangerous affliction caught up with my mother—love. Against the wishes of my grandmother, she married my father. As my mother recalls, it was his Bohemian carefree and living life to the fullest attitude, which swept my mother off her feet even to the point of rebelling against my grandmother. My mother describes him as a man who knew everything about motorbikes and was a talented musician. Every time she recounts an anecdote or talks about him, I hear a bitter nostalgia in her voice. Even though she madly loved him, all his talents and love for the world was drowned by his alcoholism. My grandmother describes him as the gentlest man when he was sober and a wild beast when intoxicated—a Dr Jekyll Mr. Hyde kind of predicament.

My father never earned a penny and whatever money he made from his music was spent on booze. My grandmother was struggling financially and with the news of my arrival on the horizon, my mother started going from one house to another giving private tuitions in English to school students in the Bhowanipore neighborhood. In the scorching heat of May and with a huge belly, she would work tirelessly as she toiled on foot from one house to another. Soon her profession thrived as she is an excellent teacher and her reputation increased. When I was born, my mother held me in her arms in the Bhowanipore hospital and made a promise to me that she would make no compromises keeping me at stake. For her, that meant removing me from the hostile surroundings of my father’s home and we went on to live in my grandfather’s house. In 1998, my mother filed for a divorce and worked hours, teaching English each day to pay the legal fees and to raise me at the same time. Raising a child is an expensive affair. She is immensely brave as during that time having a divorce was a taboo in the patriarchal Indian society. Many people gossiped and spread rumors, but nobody had the audacity to ever say anything to her face as she always held her head up high. During that tumultuous period of her life, she had no friends to help her, and my aunt was too young. I have always lived with my mother and grandmother ever since and my mother supported us by providing private tuitions in our home space—something she does even today but now out of pleasure and not compulsion for I am old and thankfully able enough to financially help my family. The years have rolled by, and her struggles have borne fruition. Even though my father passed away in 2013 and when I heard the news, I felt a strange sense of emptiness inside, but it is hard to express grief for a man you never knew. My mother never let me feel the absence of not having a parent as she had the strength of two. That sense of emptiness I felt was born and dead within that night.

Sometimes in moments of quiet vulnerability, I have often sensed my mother feel utmost regret about her marriage and how that was the worst mistake of her life. She was a brilliant student on her way to crack the Government exams and become a District Magistrate when she took the decision that completely changed her life. However, ever time I ask her about it, she says that she is glad about it as the worst mistake of her life gave her the best thing in her life—me. I can only hope that I do justice to her struggle and her story lives on through my writing.