The one where Mumma turns 50!

 

Mumma on her pre birthday trip to Goa!

22 as a number is very special to me, as all my blogs are released on 22nd of every month, and this one is not just special because this is the 22nd blog being released on 22nd but even more special as it is about my Mumma who is most special to me. So this golden blog is an ode to her!

Born as Kirti Patil on 21st of March 1974 in the pious city of Ujjain. She has spent the first 24 years of her life in different cities, villages and hamlets of Madhya Pradesh. I have been a fan of her childhood stories which are full of adventure, excitement and learning. In fact I tell her at times she should start blogging too, her story telling skills are so good that I feel like I have actually been to all the places she has lived. Her stories are not just an insight into her life but an even more insight into life in the late 70s and 80s. Her father (Patil Baba) was in a transferable job, so every few years she was in a different place and a new school. Which I think is the reason why it is very easy for her to talk to new people and start a conversation without much of a small talk. Once she was in a hamlet where every girl in the school was already married, yes her entire class comprised child brides, it sounds strange but was a fact. And once she went to a new school where she used to sit on last bench every day, after the first exam, the teacher came and asked who is Kirti Patil, much to the surprise of the teacher it was the girl sitting on last bench, he said she had topped the class and asked her to sit on the first bench thereafter. She has always been a school and college topper. In fact on one occasion in a school she did not like the girls uniform so she got herself stitched a boys uniform and wore that to school. Her adventure trails to and from school are so thrilling, that if I get a time machine I would love to go and come back from school with her. She was and still is very good in drawing, painting, sculpting and much more, at one place where they  were transferred they couldn't find a Ganpati idol in that place, so she got POP and made it herself and the tradition of celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi was not discontinued. She is also a very well  traveled person. She has been to almost 20 states. I take the name of the state, and she has already been there. Even now she is on her pre birthday Goa trip with friends, so the count is 21 now!

 

After spending 24 years in MP, she married my father and came to Maharashtra. And this is her 26th year in this state. She took a break from her teaching career, so that me and my sister could have a comfortable childhood. Being a homemaker is a very difficult job but when she does it, it seems seamless. I remember participating in all the competitions in school, she and Pappa wrote speeches, poems, mono acting scripts for me and my sister. She made all the props all by herself in so much detail. She dressed me for all the fancy dress competitions, in fact once there was green day at school and I did not have any green dress so she stitched a dress for me within a day! But in all this she never told me I have to come first in any competition, but always pushed me to participate in every competition. She has made me chef Sanjeev Kapoor, Lord Hanuman, Raja Krishna deva Raya, Indira Gandhi, Anna Hazare, Jawaharlal Nehru and a lot more. In class 6th or 7th I started disliking maths, and told her that maths is not good and that I don’t like it, she did not like this statement, so she sat along with me and started solving maths, being a topper from her school days initially she did sums before I could and then more than maths, it became a competition who does the sum first, I took some time but she patiently taught me and then competed with me, finally after some time I started finishing the sum with her and slowly started liking maths too. Today I love maths all thanks to her dedication and patience, maths was not difficult, I had made it difficult for myself by saying so.

 

After me and my sister were old enough, she restarted her teaching passion, through her scholarship classes so that we could develop interest in competitive exams. In the very first batch of her scholarship class she had a district and state topper from her batch. This continued for years. Later on with my younger sister she started class 8th, 9th and 10th standard coaching too. And once again with my sister scoring 99.4% in class 10th boards, she had a Mumbai region topper from her "Bhosale Madam Classes". A few days back there was farewell conducted for her batch of class 10th students where I saw them praise her with all their heart, their eyes could say it all, how much they respected, loved and looked up to her. She started the classes all alone but now she has a team of similar passionate women who are experts in their respective subjects. She is a very disciplined, organized, hardworking, dedicated, determined person that I look up to the most! She is my inspiration, she motivates me every day with her actions, thoughts and decisions. But what surprises me the most is her multitasking, she manages everything and everyone of us, and also her experimentation skills are appreciable, because I haven’t had the same chicken curry on any consecutive Sundays which is a proof of her trying different every time and I have had dishes from length and breadth of the country and different latitudes of the earth, which were made by her. On this 50th birthday, I wish all her wishes come true and she gets to travel around the world!!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUMMA!!!

 

Happy Reading,

 

Siddhi Bhosale.