She went to school wrapped in a saree. She loved Marathi and Sanskrit, and reading English novels. She wrote short stories, learnt to swim and admired everybody else for their qualities.

In her 20s she went from Bombay to Coimbatore and set up home there. During the next few years she zigzagged from Tamil Nadu to Madhya Pradesh to Karnataka and back again, making friends along the way. She started playing badminton, stitched baby frocks, made stuffed toys by the dozens for exhibitions and kept honing her cooking skills. She embroidered frocks and chair-backs, grew flowers, loved and kept pets and got along well with neighbours. And felt guilty about doing nothing.

A decade or so later, she set up house in Bombay, for her children’s education. From leading a secure and protected life she learnt to handle bank drafts, face earthquake scares, make visits to the doctor, electrician, school, post office and pay bills, with a couple of kids hanging onto her. Somewhere on the way she painted sarees, smocked frocks, baked cakes, attended RWA meetings, stood in queues, brought home books and magazines from libraries, read to her family, taught the children their school work as well as manners, and cooked one great meal after another. All the while wondering how she could be a useful member of society.

She looked after family, innumerable guests and friends with the same honest attention to their likes and dislikes. Her parties were a treat for the eyes and stomach, and my father was a proud man as he relished his friends’ delight. She read my college texts, discussed them with me and translated ‘A tree grows in Brooklyn’ into Marathi  because she loved it and wanted my grandmothers to enjoy it ,too. To this day, I can feel the happy anticipation as my grandmas finished their tea and sat waiting expectantly for her to come to the table with the latest translated chapter. Tea, lunch, dinner, everything served on the dot day after day; and still she had time to clean the house, enjoy gardening, translate stories, write long newsy letters and play with her grandchildren. But she always looked at other women admiringly, lamenting her own lack of ‘initiative’.

In her 60s she was wary and afraid of the mobile phone and the computer, but messaged me regularly, peppering her messages with exclamations and smileys. She typed out her stories on the computer but would hurriedly pass on the credit for it to her children who taught her.

Now she is 75. Active, still as interested in cooking as ever though she doesn’t taste a thing; regular with her exercise and walks, and turning out one beautiful patchwork quilt after another. For a person who firmly says she is no good at stitching, she has made and gifted more than 30 quilts!

I cannot give you anything, Amma, that you do not have! I can only wish for and hope I get some of your qualities so that my daughter can feel proud of me. As I do, of you.