Backing it up...

Life becomes pretty devastating when you, hoping against all hopes to have your data secured, get to know that one wrong download cost you all your work till date and that you were naïve enough not to believe in inventions called “hard disks” then.

In short, I, permanently and irrevocably, lost all my data.

And by “data”, I mean the photographs that I took immense pains to first click, then transfer and compile neatly into albums. 

It still hurts. Thinking of all those faces in the pictures, suddenly I miss my “data” even more.

One good thing I did, though, was upload a select few on FB (FYI, for tagging a zillion faces, FB has barred me from any further tagging).

So this one day I was sulking over my devastated sans-pics life, staring at my cruel laptop’s heartless default desktop background. When I realized I could stand the background no more, I downloaded one of my uploaded pics on FB and set it as my wallpaper.

("THE" wallpaper)

Before I could breathe a sigh of relief seeing the beauty, a revelation occurred.

The faces in the pic seemed happier, including mine, than we actually were at that time, if I remember the moment correctly.

Doesn't it so happen, while you are in that moment, u do not realize how happy it is until it passes. After 6 months, when one fine day you sit defeated and helpless and suddenly set this pic as your laptop’s wallpaper, you say to yourself “You lucky girl! What more do you want from life? Aren’t you lucky enough that you are one of the faces in this happy pic?”

I, once more, understood the importance of these three people in my life.

This one pic is enough for me to forget lamenting over the rest 100000000 lost.

I love you guys more than you can ever come to think.

Once a mother, always a teacher.

Things change. In almost 20 years, things definitely change.

My mother has taught me, one way or the other, throughout my educational life. While in school, she helped me develop interest in mathematics (the subject I still love) and accountancy (without any success).

She would sit both of us, I and my little brother, down and start our daily lessons. We used to be pretty little things then; timid and meek in front of our “seldom-strict-mummy”.

Its been 19 years now that she taught me my first math counting, first English alphabet and hindi alphabet in varna-mala.

As I sit in my room trying to make sense of an HBR article on “Talent Management” now, while inadvertently ending up listening to whats going on in the living room outside, I cant be more nostalgic.

Now instead of us 2, she has 5 kids to teach. Kids as small as a 4-year-old to a 14-year-old.

Our domestic helps must be happy souls now, seeing their children tutored.

And unlike the rich brats (a true generalisation), they are very eager to learn.

Only a deprived knows the feeling of getting.

(My mother with the kids... unawares)

I hear my mother, I hear the same voice I can now recognize from any corner instructing- Shruti, aaj maths aur hindi karna hai. Rahul, Eleven aur seven ki spelling yaad karke sunao. Shivani, ye ghar se karke lana hai.

Listening it over the phone is a different thing than seeing it with my own eyes. Still, when she told me, a month back that she’ll be teaching our helps’ kids, I was inspired.

I reflect back and realize that one thing she has accomplished in her entire life till now is being a Superlative. My mother is a Super-Mummy.

So… things don’t really change in 19 years, do they??