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MY MOTHER

She was quite old and they said that she was ageing like  old wine. Though I had never tasted wine but had heard this proverb since my childhood . For me  it was a substance which sparkled in an ornamental  bottle which unconsciously made my  mouth  water. Since my  very young age   anything I heard which i couldn't understand created their own meanings  with images  attached  to them. Same happened with the  word 'wine' -it created  a mystery around it because I  always heard  the  elders talking about it in whispers and with a mischievous glint in their eyes. Since then it became a thing of curiosity shrouded in secrecy. 

I looked at my  mother to know was she ageing like the old wine? She was in her nineties , her eyebrows were still thick ,shiny  and black ,her hair had thinned out but had not lost its lustre. Her hands had withstood the ravages of time and they glistened with the massages she did regularly. I never saw her reclining on pillows but she always  sat with her backbone straight. She lied down  only  when she had to sleep. She made sure to walk for an hour everyday in her house only. But the two noticeable features of  my  mother  were  her eyes and her sharp tongue and the alertness of her grasping everything that happened around  in the house  and in  the  lives of the servants attending on her .  She relished the details of their romantic flings   though  glossing  over them.  The boundaries between them got eroded and she indulged the passions  aroused   by  their talks. If  I happened to be there I would try to make her conscious of her age  and  inappropriate  conduct but she would  brush  me aside and negate any misdemeanour on her part. 

This perhaps was to age like old wine....

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