Two Hues, A Single Canvas

“Ave, maris stella,
Dei mater alma,
Atque semper virgo,
Felix cœli porta….”

Growing up is never easy, for anyone. It wasn’t easy for me either. When things get out of hand, the world looks cruel, and circumstances unsparing, we look for shelter. Some seek shelter in art, some in love, and the weakest, in people.

I have been weak all my life; too untalented to seek refuge in art and too cynical to love. My maa has been my home.

My maa has been my rock through the years. Once when I was a kid I wanted to participate in a school competition. However, I wasn’t allowed to even though I was eligible. Well to be frank it felt as if the world was ending, I was frustrated and was one inch away from losing all faith in humanity. I know that it sounds dramatic and not something that would bother the 16-year-old in me. But to that 9-year-old who barely had any friends, was struggling to fit in, and had worked hard, it was devastating. In that darkness there stood maa. Chanting verses from the Gita and telling me that there was possibly nothing that would make working hard not the right thing to do. I still remember maa telling me in a comforting sing-song voice that life is a long journey; to lose faith in doing the right was the same as losing faith in God. Yes, I wasn’t entirely convinced; looking back I find maybe I never really forgave. But there’s something that happened: I learned what it felt to be hurt, how important it is to do the right thing, and above all how to comfort the hurt.

Maa has been a shelter hence.

I’ve lost friends throughout my life. I’ve been drenched in indifference forever. I’ve made best friends out of the wrong people. I’ve spent sleepless nights looking blankly at clear skies in pure hopelessness. But the grief never drowned me; it continues to pour over, but I stand too tall to be drowned. Maa made this possible. A warning she has been. Standing on the edge of darkness holding out a hand to me and holding a candle high. Whenever friendships turned into what they shouldn’t, every time I was asked to settle for less, every time I cared too much there was maa telling me to escape. To break free perhaps is the biggest warning ever given and for me, it was maa who warned me.

Maa has been a warning.

And perhaps Maa has been a monster.

Ocean Vuong writes in his book, ‘On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous’:

“…What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once….”

And perhaps all mothers are monsters; shelter and warning for their children.