This is My Mother

My father breathed his last a few months after my birth. My dear mother was about 21 years old then. My father left in her young hands a heavy hope – one that would measure the weight of her faith in God for the rest of her turbulent life. She promised on his deathbed that she would never leave us, leave alone remarry, but raise us with her life.

At 21, my mother was jobless, and burdened with 11 of us children including my stepsiblings (How I abhor the prefix ‘step’ to the ‘sibling.’ They are my brothers and sisters). She was an alien living among an alien community, worlds away from the comfort of her own brood.

Life was not yet ready for a young, jobless widow with eleven children. I am the youngest. During his lifetime, my father walked the earth a prosperous, high-ranking government officer whose name was proverbial throughout the lands of the Ao Naga, Kyong Naga, and Sumi Naga people during the ‘70s and ‘80s. He raised his brothers to serve in important administrative positions in the government, nurtured the foundation of his sisters’ futures, and walked with the great chieftains and pioneers of the Naga Hills.

A New, Sad Life: Our Initial Days

Having said and done all, it is mere history, and nothing more. The future looked without feet to stand on when he left to rest. For, in the hands of my mother was a glorious legacy that would eventually fall to the unforgiving winds of test that blew in from the southern regions of life.   

Barely out of her teenage years, burdened with a bleak brood, jobless and living alone among a community that was not her own, my mother could have walked out of her sorrowful legacy. She could have taken any of the many strong hands that reached out, promising a hearth full of virgin fire to cook royal meals for her, secure and untroubled for the rest of her life. She could have chosen to return to the prosperous house of my grandparents, tribal chieftains of a town in Mokokchung district.

She refused. She stayed. She had miles to go and promises to keep. She stayed.

The years that followed were the dark side of the moon – an abstract of human incapacities, a song of human fallacies, and a capricious foible of life. The chronicles have no space for what would follow. Simply put, after years of poverty a relative secured her a job as a peon in the Department of Power in Wokha. Her salary was Rs. 200 (about $ 4.17). A bag of rice charged Rs. 50 (about $ 0.83) then. It was in the late ‘80s.

I remember owning only a pair of brown trousers – both served as my ‘fair’ fare and the choice for the 'rough.’  Meaning, the trousers were my domestic fare as well as the fare for special “social” occasions. I wore it at home, to school on no-uniform days, and when out socializing. My childhood itinerary revolved around friends in the locality and Sunday school.

That's me, and my dear mother. I was about 6 years then, newly-admitted in nursery  Someone fished out this photograph from a stack of  old books. 

I remember having ‘dinner’ that was nothing more than a thin broth; it had only green chilies and salt for flavor. Mom never told us that we did not have money to buy textbooks, or new sweaters for Christmas because those criminal undergrounds had taken a “percentage” of her almost nonexistent salary. Her salary was Rs. 200 per month. The so-called “tax” they imposed ranged anywhere between Rs. 50 to Rs. 150. That was a fortune.

(To this day, I curse the undergrounds and their leaders who live in palatial mansions and ride in expensive cars. If them taking money away from my mother could cause me to spit on their faces with eternal spite, then I cannot imagine the depth of ugliness that cling to the hearts of Nagas whose innocent fathers, sons or relative fell to the tyranny of this sham called “Naga freedom struggle.” There are some honest, God-fearing, and people-conscious cadres. I know some personally. Sadly, the majority are mere thieves who rob, steal and kill in the name of “independence.”)

I remember going to “hahjira” (a daily wage contract) to dig septic pits, or to pound gravel to buy books. The most “experienced” diggers made Rs. 50 a day. The normal payment for pounding gravel corresponding to a full 10-liter metal container was Rs. 15. I remember returning happily with the earnings, only to find my mother weeping and praying in her small bedroom, every evening.

She would wipe her eyes hurriedly, and come out to greet me with the soft, genuine smile, as always. Looking back, I know that whatever was feeding strength to her smile was not human. The strength behind her smile, canceling searing grief, could only be from a source more benevolent than mortal.    

Poverty walked with us for many years, even when I somehow managed to graduate from high school. Even in my pre-university years, we struggled to some extent. Honestly, I never even believed that I would even secure my Bachelor’s degree. All we had those days were what we did not.

Education and the new economic order have given our society a semblance of civilization. However, during those days, widows and orphans were objects of ridicule – I scoff secretly at the stories of “traditional Naga hospitality and kindness” and “chivalry.” Myths are a character of superstitious, pagan savages. The Naga lore is full of sham. People mocked us, and some even called my mother ugly names.

I still remember some of the names. In addition, I still remember the faces of those who even attempted to satiate their ugly intentions on her. For a young, landless widow and her dependents subsisting on Rs. 200-500 a month, Naga society was a terrible taskmaster.

Strange Looks

I see a question in your mind even as I narrate to you this story. That query is so perceptible I might as well touch it with my fingers. I have long been familiar with that question since childhood. ‘So did you not have relatives who could have helped you?’

Simply put, they had their own problems and economic issues. All of them had large families to support – and their share of turmoil, challenges, and quest for redemption. Unlike the commercial possibilities we have today, the older decades were days when family planning was unheard of. Likewise, the economic input demanded by a household’s brood to avail education and domestic living were virtually insurmountable. Agriculture (primarily) and government employment - to some extent - were the only sources of employment then.

Some kind relatives tried to ease our burns in whatever way they could. Nonetheless, I believe they had their own share of tragedies to contend with, own battles to do, both inside their homes and with the world outside. They were struggling in their own problems; we had to contend with ours. Life is a battlefield – to each his sword, to each his opponent.  

The Princess

Through it all, my mother stood firm and tall. After all, was not she a tribal princess, born of a great chief and a prophet of a mother among the people of Mokokchung and Zunheboto? Her life is a lesson. I could never repay her enough for not giving up on us. 

In 2008, when my Associated Content (now Yahoo! Voices, US) colleague Val Ferrar, and Indian Media production strategist Toshimenla Tzudir, composed a Markup* of my columns and articles in The Morung Express. They added a line to it: “Al loves loves and adores his beautifulest mother.” It was sweet, and amusing.  Any person who has ever known me by a word knows well enough that I have offered them sufficient boredom with convoluted (perhaps!) accounts about my mother.

* A ‘Markup’ is the small highlight about you, your achievements, skills, or career that editors give under, say, newspapers articles or columns you wrote. Generally, editors or independent observers who are familiar with your work / career write the markups.

Yet, untruth does not decorate it. I know she is full of love not because all mothers are becoming of love, but because she will love you – genuinely.  Yes, love is the only gift I can ever gift my beautiful mother. Now you know the name of my mom’s name. I have no shame in being a man from the school of desolation yet become a child all over again when with my mother. I will declare her to the world, and before men and God.

In 2011, when the national investigative magazine Tehelka called to write about me, and how they would describe me, I told them, “Write anything about me but make sure you write under my profile ‘Al Ngullie loves his beautifulest mother.’” The Tehelka journalist thought it was “so cute.” She had no idea that I, behind the phone, was sternly serious.

Nothing will ever build a pedestal high enough to stand my mother. There is no eloquence to justify the furtive tales of what darkness she went through. She is not only a mother to me – she is a lifetime of lesson in values, goodwill and faith, love, life and other gracious mysteries.

With my wonderful, beautifulest mom now

My mom and her lessons

Through every pang of hunger, she encouraged us to never complain but thank God, for the love, life and future He promised. Through every ugly name she was called, she responded by praying for them – and encouraged us to bless the naysayers. Through every teardrop that we shed, she forced our protest into submission before the promises of God and the magnificent plans He had for us (Jeremiah 29: 11-14).

To the people who shouted us out of their homes, she readily went to offer them assistance and presence when they were ill, or needed help. To the people who insulted us because we were poor, she encouraged us to befriend them; she taught us how to behave, talk to people, cook and clean the house, socialize with people of ideas and mind. She even keeps telling us to forgive the undergrounds, and to pray for them. And, let God do His job. That is my mom.

To those who did not reach out to us when we cried out to them, she taught us to be there for them if they came seeking our help. She taught us (and still does) to welcome them – not so that we would get a chance to gloat at them how unkindly they had treated us, but because helping people was the right thing to do.

My mother was also the one who taught us never to say ‘stepbrother’ or ‘stepbrother’ – they are your real brothers and sisters, she used to say.

When people mocked us for being poor, she urged us to hope in the riches of God and His reality, not in the words of mortal men. The words of men come from foolishness and emotions; the words of God are reality, she taught me. Even when we had nothing to eat, she never missed giving the Ten Tithe from the meager salary that she earned. When hard times came, so were her soothing words of assurance and quiet faith: "Why do you fear when God is with us? Be strong, God is for us." 

I could read you the lessons from her from here to when the oceans dry up, but I would still have enough to fill even more oceans. If we failed her in any way, it was only because we forgot the lessons her victories wrote. For, she never failed us.

God did not fail us, and will never. My mother is the testimony of what His power can do. Atheists can scoff. There are things only we know in secret. We praise God. He is worthy.

All that you read are why I love my mother with my heart and life.  I love her not only because I love her in that she is my mother. I love her so because she is a lifetime of lesson in values, goodwill and faith, love and life, and other gracious mysteries. This, my friend, is my mother. 

© 2014 This is my Mother Al Ngullie © 2012 Al Ngullie