For Vijay

Dear Mummy,

Thank you for living life with such joy even when life itself has not be generous to you.

Thank you for teaching us to live life as if there was no tomorrow and no sorrow.

Thank you for giving us the strength to roll with the punches and land punches of our own in order to survive.

Thank you for demonstrating to us the power of empathy—how it saves lives, literally!

Thank you for your powers of healing—through words and through homeopathy.

I believe that without you, we, my brothers and I, would never be the people we are—we would not know how to do the right thing even in very wrong times.

We wouldn’t know how to keep our ethical center and how to build our lives and relationships from such a center.

Most of all, without my mother, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today. In fact, I wouldn’t be the feminist I am today—brave and kind.

Thank you, mummy and thank you God, whoever you are and wherever you reside, for giving me her—Vijay—my mother.

We love you. Happy mother’s day!

Shubhra