My wife had served us a delicious meal and my thoughts flashed back to my mother...
I had gone to meet my mother as I often did. As always with folded hands, I bowed to mother and touched her feet. Gripping me by the shoulders she picked me up and embraced me. The glowing delight on her face was all encompassing.
After a brief update, she stood up and said, "You must be hungry? Let me get you some lunch. It's hot out there, you must be thirsty, what would you like to drink?"
***
Mothers are always happy to see their children. After they see them, all they think of is feeding their offspring. They see their child, and instantly they want to stuff food into their child's mouth.
Love and food: two of human beings very important nutrients. Delicious served unconditionally, with a smile, and for free. All they want is our time and attention.
Mother darted into the kitchen asked her maid to help her and shooed me out of the kitchen. In a little while, the aroma of the cooking tickled my nose and palette. Presto! there was some irresistible and delicious food for me to eat. I simply wolfed it down and then some more.
Whatever mother cooked, it was so tasty, even the most common of dishes were transformed into something delicious. My wife, Mohini, too is a fantastic cook, particularly when she is cooking for her sons.
I couldn't but help think, 'Wow! Mothers are so special. They love and respect us even when our behaviour makes us unworthy of their devotion'.
I recalled one evening, when I was a young man, our mother had served our father and all of us a tasty meal. After dinner my father asked us, "Did you ever think about, why your mother's cooking is so delicious?"
The questioned gnawed at me. So whenever I ate my mother's cooking, I thought about it. I nagged mother to tell me, but she just laughed it off. I tried to study what it was that she was doing, and try to understand the secret. After a year I gave up and asked Dad.
His explanation was life changing. "Your mother adds a secret ingredient. It's called love. Whenever someone prepares food with love, which inevitably a mother, and often a lover, wife, daughter, sister, granny or aunt do, the food is always delicious."
To the modern mind preoccupied with materialism and the compulsive need to count and measure everything, the concept of love and friendship appears rather naive and old fashioned.
Love and friendship are anything but matters of fashion, they were, they are and they will remain, the essence of a meaningful life.
I have learnt through these experiences that anything done with love, passion and commitment is bound to be extraordinary and rich.
Gurvinder Singh
~ July 2019
