Courage is Silence

Slaying demons is not the only kind of courage there is. Sometimes, courage is a silent force whispering love, hope and kindness. First written for a prompt at an Ochre Sky Memoir Writing Workshop.

Art by

Noirtanki

, a writer, editor and artist with a special interest in pop culture through the lens of neurodiversity and the female gaze. Her work focuses on curating human interest stories, micro memoir and social commentary. 

It is 1964 near the Noonmati Oil Refineries in Assam. There is a very happy family living in one of the company cottages. A perfect family – mother, father, brother, sister. On Sunday afternoons, the mother bakes a plain vanilla cake in the pressure-cooker, filling the little house with its smell. At night, the meadow behind their cottage fills up with the magical glow from fireflies, like the stars have come down to play. No one knows how close Death is lurking. In the shadows, silently. After a brief illness of a few days, he carries the mother away, leaving behind a husband who never gets over his grief, and two teenaged children. Just three years later, the sister gets married, and eight years later, in 1972, she becomes my mother.

She devotes her life to my older brother and me. She plays with us. She reads to us. She cooks for us. She loves the outdoors. We visit public gardens where she throws a mat on the grass, and we have a picnic. She is there when we leave for school, and she is there when we return. She is always working. She doesn’t talk much. She looks after her parents-in-law. She looks after her husband. She cooks. She cleans. She cooks again. She cooks what we like to eat. She cooks what her in-laws like to eat. She cooks what her husband likes to eat. She forgets to cook what she likes to eat.

The years pass and we grow up, my brother and I. I look at her face. I ask her to sit down and rest awhile. I ask her if she is happy. She says yes, of course she is happy. “But Maa…!” She says Baba is a good man. He has such a good job. He is kind. He is generous. Everyone loves him. She has two lovely children. “But Maa…!” A few more years pass, and we start college. My mother teaches us to find joy in the smallest of things – in the tiny but unspeakably beautiful wildflowers that grow with the grass. In the way the stars shine in the night-sky. In a hot cup of tea at the end of a long day. She teaches us that hope is something we must find in our own hearts. That loving your family often involves great sacrifice.

Years later, she does a correspondence course in journalism. She completes her assignments in the kitchen because her mother-in-law will not let her keep the light on in the living room late at night. Then one day, my mother has her long hair cut short. She keeps her sarees aside and starts wearing salwar suits. She gets a job teaching English to foreign students. She bakes cakes and gives some to the local bakery for sale - just for fun!! When I get pregnant a few years later, she drops everything to come and live with me in my new home in another city. I am young and scared, and my pregnancy is making me sick. She comforts me. She says I am carrying within me the person that will love me the most - much more than anyone else can love me.   My daughter comes and it is true - she loves me more than anyone else ever can!

Every year, we drive from Mumbai to Pune to spend the summer with my parents. My mother’s quiet courage seeps into my daughter. I see it when she jumps into the deep end of the pool after just a few swimming lessons, crouching on the starting block like a lioness about to pounce on its prey, hands folded in front as if in prayer. And then a leap of faith into the water. It is there when she walks half the way home from school that fateful day in 2005 – the day that Mumbai drowned. She is only seven years old and her little body is covered with the bites of insects lurking under the water which is up to her chest. Later, we hear that there may have been snakes and dead bodies in that water. “I am a survivor, Mumma!” she tells me a couple of years later when she finally understands what she went through that day. It is there when she understands that she must share her parents with her paternal grandparents who are old and sick. It is there when she feels accute pain from her kidney stones for the first time. She bears the pain alone through the night so that the household is not disturbed. It is there when she travels to the US for a Master’s Degree in between the Delta and the Omicron waves of Covid in 2021. Because of Covid restrictions, she spends most of her time in her two bedroom apartment, alone. Classes are online. She waits patiently till physical classes start after the Omicron wave ebbs. Then she quickly makes friends from all over the world!  

Courage is love.

Courage is kindness. 

Courage is hope.

Courage is silence.