Thank you everybody for being with us today. We have gathered together here in the memory of my mother Smt. Shail Gupta, so that together we may acknowledge and share both joy that her life was to us and pain that her passing brings. In sharing the joy and pain together today, may we lessen the pain and remember more clearly the joy. Mummy had completed 85 summers in her life and is survived by us three brothers, one dear sister and nine grand children. She was the oldest of four brothers and one sister at Agra and must have certainly spent much time helping her mother to raise the children and that is how she became an incredibly generous, kind, hard working and strong person. She was so strong that till the last breath she continued to say that she was fine. She was the cause and effect of our birth, existence, background, tradition, culture, belief system and a legacy of her love and perseverance.
There are no words to describe the closeness with mother and particularly when you know that you have inherited a matching DNA. She was simple, humble, modest, unassuming with deep spiritual foundation. My first memory with Mummy goes back to 1958, when as a three and half years old holding her hand I went to jail to meet my father, when he with many other advocates at Jaipur had courted arrest, while protesting the abolition of High Court Bench at Jaipur. In 1958 we shifted to Jodhpur His Highness Flats. It must have been a very difficult period for her from a four storied huge kothi at Agra to 2800 sq. yrs bungalow in C Scheme in Jaipur to a two bedroom flat on third floor in Jodhpur opposite a zoo. She got me learn handwriting, drawing, music, geometry very early in life. She made me join typing classes, which she knew would be imperative for my profession.
She would do just everything from growing kitchen garden, maintaining and milking cow, taking out butter using washing machine, making home ice cream using hand run machine to distribution of clothes at kodi khana on fathers’ birthday were carried on with lot of fervor, enthusiasm and zeal. She was the finest known chef ever known to us. She was a wonderful natural entrepreneur and got a knitting machine in 1960’s and loved to knit sweaters for all family members and friends within hours. With my father, who was an enthused traveler, she went round the world in 1971. She was also an ardent book reader and had developed a home library.
In 1973 my father was elevated as a judge of High Court of Rajasthan and life was than easier and glorious for her, but she continued to work with great spirit of creativity. She undertook distribution of clothes for new born children, resurrected and revived the artist in her by creating some of the finest paintings from her brush. Finally all her talent out performed and her great spirit of entrepreneurship bloomed when she started MilkyWay, one of the first fast food centers in Jaipur. She also made a great social contribution as being President of Durga Vahini, Rajasthan and Vice President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Those were her own glorious years as a very affectionate mother, provider of just everything to everybody. She was able to reach zenith of personal satisfaction during that period.
She has taken the best possible care of us all, her close family and extended family. Like mother earth she just continued to give everything in abundance to everybody. I have had the privilege of having the greatest mom, the way she was… nothing but the best…
18.01.2018
1 comment:
Great sketch
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