How my mother ensured my success in life

It fell to my mother to look after us children -- I had an older sister Malini and a brother, Ramnath. With the sole bread winner of the family gone, my illiterate mother shifted us from Kerala to our maternal uncle's house in Hyderabad for awhile.

Our uncle was fond of us and looked after us well, but my mother did not think it fit to burden him with the responsibility of four additional mouths to feed -- he already had six children of his own to look after. Having come to terms with her lonely status as a single mother, she then shifted us to another relative's home in Nagpur.

Here, my illiterate mother began to work hard to keep heart and soul together. She used to teach young girls music, and took up a job as a maid in the neighbourhood homes, doing menial housework.  

• When confidence pays...

Mother would go from house to house in the hot sun, the heat from the ground burning her feet, as she could afford neither chappals nor shoes to wear. She worked night and day, and her pay, by the time the year 1970 rolled around, was a mere Rs 50. But she still wanted all three of us to have a decent education. She would have us borrow books from others and then copy them by hand overnight. In those days, there were no photocopying machines; and if there had been, we wouldn't have been able to afford them. All three of us children were studious, but without my father around to finance our education, it was tough on my mother.

In the face of such difficulties, my elder sister Malini passed her HSC examinations, and took up a job in a private organisation. She then married a Telugu boy who worked with RBI. Ramnath was able to complete his HSC and then did a diploma in electrical engineering; he married our cousin, my uncle's daughter.

As for me, I completed my HSC and took up a job in Nagpur itself, but studied alongside. I later married a Maharashtrian boy -- it was my mother's decision that I do so, because she did not have money to offer as dowry as per Hindu customs.

• My mother, the entrepreneur

My dear mother passed away in the year 1997, but it is because of her that our family today is well-settled. Malini retired as a senior officer from LIC, but passed away some time ago as well. Her sons, however, are settled in the US and doing very well for themselves. My brother retired as superintendent engineer from MSEB Koradi, and his son is also in the US. As for me, I am a chief executive in a public limited corporation.

We rose from nothing in life, and it is only because of my mother's desire to bring us up well that we did.