In the shadow of my mother’s posthumous glory

Remember, like it was yesterday, when Karan Johar was inexorably fixated on Alia Bhatt this, Alia Bhatt that, Alia Bhatt every two words I spout. The diminutive, baby-faced mascot of cute emojis had to sit the pouty gentleman down, and said: “You are not my mother! STFU.”

Freud has said: If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.

Ever since I wrote my mother’s memoir, on her life as a tawaif before and after me, the title of which I find too long to type and refer in its abbreviated form as ‘TLC’ (Tender Loving Care), I have been talking nonstop about her. I wish to wash my hands of her. As timelines refresh, I look forward to when I do not have to mention her name, except when I am paid to reflect, like this gig. My ears may voluntarily turn deaf any moment now hearing my own nasal voice howl a thumri about her khooobsurti, hunar, adab, shokhi, adaa, saadgi and her unparalled akal-mandi arriving by the accidental criss-crossing of her gardish ke sitare.

My mother has been dead for two years. Grieving isn’t a daily ritual like a prayer when prayer itself isn’t a habit I wear like an undershirt. I want to move on to the next story. I want to tell my own story. It may not be as raw, brave, courageous (same as brave), poignant and inspiring as hers, as reviewed and reported in the media. That has made me jealous, unapproving of her posthumous glory. In sync with the vainglorious times we inhabit, let’s move on to the next chapter: Me, me, me.

My mother had a rough, tumultuous life, and thereof she then had the smarts to make my life velvety and painless. Even privileged, I would say. Not entitled, which is debatably a bulwark of lineage, but privileged, sure; in my case, elite boarding school education, a sheltered childhood and a healthy dose of pep talk: “Bade naazon se paala hai tujhe maine,” she said, “kisi baat ki kami nahi honay di hai.” You can almost hear a taraqqii-pasand sher, a ghazal, a melody in her tender voice. Yes, I know, I should not be making fun of her. But here’s the thing: she would dil khol ke welcome it. Part of surviving with grit is the ability to make light of it. Humour alleviates suffering. She balanced it stupendously.

I don’t get to complain about having a hard life. Nonpareil to hers, mine’s a moonwalk eclipsed by her strife. She had improved me in her mould. I unctuously resent her for it. She gets all the smoky, sultry, messy, masaledar Seventies disco and bang-bang drama. Mine is lyrically Nineties’ post-existential art house as watching a red balloon float into the blue, blooming sky. After a few minutes, one gets bored of staring at something so dull and uneventful. What else is a balloon’s fate other than fading into the white sun? I ask myself if that’s all I have to do for the rest of my life, hover in the shadow of my mother’s brilliant, meteoric rise in death.

In the dark comedy film ‘Throw Momma From The Train’, every time Danny DeVito, a wannabe writer, sits at his typewriter to punch a story, his irascible old mother interrupts him with an errand that makes him lose his train of thought. He struggles with his weird imagination to poison her Pepsi, impale her with surgical scissors, make her trip down a basement staircase or by blowing a trumpet into her ear. I wish for a similar confrontation. I imagine my dear and positively departed mother punching my Adam’s apple and saying: “Bas, chup kar, mujhe bolne de.” Let her nautch ghost dance. Touche.

The first time I was on stage at a literature festival to talk about my mother shortly after the release of her memoir, I was convinced that the glare of the strong light focused on us was partially blinding me. I was shaking like a leaf, my co-panellist, human rights activist Naseema Khatoon, informed me later. She was raised in a brothel. She spoke eloquently, formidably about her mother. What she said allayed my fears of speaking on stage, interacting with a crowd, facing a spotlight.

She said: “Hum andheron se nikalkar ab roshni mein hain, aur jo log ab tak roshni mein thay woh ab andhere mein hamein sun rahe hain.” (We emerge from the darkness into light, and those who were in the light now heed us in the dark).

Her encouraging words lit my tail. From then on, it became ‘todo sobre mi madre’ (all about my mother). I am able to re-direct the focus light on to my mother. When words fail me, I say: Just read the damn book!

I am, however, unequivocally abstemious of well-intentioned compliments from readers. You are so brave, it takes a lot of courage, I hear. No. Bravery and courage were not silver-stacked in my quiver to pull out at convenience. It was just about plucking the right sur in her voice, her truth. I am, what we call in political parlance, the spokesperson for her story. I don’t want to take any credit. If only she would briefly return without spooking (and ghungroos) to inform that I didn’t make her famous, it’s them readers, and instead of me, they should never stop talking about her.

For, if this serves as a fitting tribute to her who is often reductively introduced as my mother, but whom I always re-introduce as a woman of her own making, her own personhood first before any permanent labels are applied, this sher of Allama Iqbal, read aloud in ‘Pakeezah’s’ closing shot, places the writer as merely a gardener in the splendour:

Hazaaron saal nargis apni be-noori pe roti hai/Badi mushkil se hota hai chaman mein deeda-war paida (Unadmired, the narcissus weeps a thousand years/For an aesthete to cherish its inimitable beauty).

— The writer is the author of ‘TLC (The Last Courtesan: Writing My Mother’s Memoir)’ and ‘Lean Days’