Sridevi bani meri mummy

                                             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Vinglish
I recently watched English Vinglish and it reminded me of my mom. Now before you start thinking this blog is about how my mom learnt to start speaking in English, I should warn you that my mom has a Masters in English Literature! All through our childhood my mom widely used her English speaking skills any time she wanted to let me and my sister know that things were going to get serious. Only problem was that we only realized this very late in life and by that time the harm was done, we had successfully managed to not listen to all of her warnings that were always delivered using the choicest of English language phrases.

Well, coming back to the point the reason the movie reminded me of my mom was because of the earnestness that Sridevi had in the movie to learn something in life and get better. She is shy and scared but the desire to learn and grow is so deep in her that she is willing to put aside all of her fears to get better. Of all the people that I have known so far I think my mom displays the strongest desire to learn and grow. You will be surprised by the number of avenues she has actually sought in her life to learn new things in her life.As long as a person is willing to teach she is always an eager student.

My earliest memory is of my mom is when she took a computer class with kids my age. The fact that she was older than them or concerns about what others would think about her were never a deterrent to my mom, she just wanted to stay up-to-date with technology and be a part of Gen X. That desire was enough for her to go ahead and do something which none of the women around her were even considering. Ever since then there is always a new activity every year that my mom picks up. She worked around out school schedules, my dad's work schedules, taking care of the house etc and still managed to find time to learn something new. There was sitar, veena, singing, painting, cooking, knitting, meditation, yoga and the list is just goes on.

The most surprising thing is that as years are starting to add to my mom's age the desire to do newer thing is growing at a even more fervent pace. She turned 50 last year and to mark that she started learning carnatic classical music once again !!  One amazing thing about her is that she is always pushing her boundaries, every passing year she is making sure that she is afraid of fewer  and fewer things in her life. My mom always felt she has missed out on being a working woman and experience of being out on your own. So to make sure she crosses that of her list she decided to start working once she hit the half century. Not as an employee though, she is entrepreneur in her own right. She runs a mini music school for kids in our colony now and the number of students keeps on increasing every day. As you might have guessed by now she is not satisfied by just teaching the kids, she comes up with newer techniques to keep the kids engaged and interested during the entire class.

Sridevi did a great job of capturing the fact that as long as there is desire to get better in life there is nothing in life that can really stop you and I think my mom is a living example of that.!