I found this old picture of my Mom in my archives this morning.
This silent picture says so much.
Always preparing for the future. Whether it is matkas. Or mirchi. While living in a kitchen with newspaper wrapped on a the utensil rack, broken shelves and broken slab.
Someone who got her mangal sutra from her money that she got as “ghar kharch”, without ever compromising on the needs and wants of either her children or her husband.
Someone whom the world sees as having double chin, but rarely sees as having 10x responsibilities as anyone else in the world, from as early as the tender age of 18. Today’s 18-year-olds have hardly ever looked up from their screens :/
This is a picture taken in our old home with our new digicam, around 2010 or 11, when none of us had a smartphone. 5 years ago that home was demolished. But her values of building her kitchen and her home while never breaking herself and her family are very much alive within her, as well as my sisters. 90% of these background characters are still there in our existing home. This is what even I have learnt from her — live within (even less than) your means, while you build things that serve everyone around you. A definition of leadership that consumerism is making us forget, but truly resides only within the heritage our Moms build and carry, while being “housewives”.
We often think of empires that business people build, but if you really want to understand how to build empires and serve a family while every single one of us goes out and builds their own empires, look at your Mom.
