All children are god’s gifts for their parents but I was more so as I was a Bagavath prasAdam, god’s blessings to my mother’s soul-full prayers after she lost her seemanthaputran, first child hardly one year old, who bore our ancestral name for the eldest child of the family, Vancheeswaran. The tsunami of small pox which swept Palakkad during those days, snatched the child as well as her one eye, though it spared the life of my father, luckily for her, for me and my siblings and also for our grandmother. My mother too would have become a prey to the fearsome virus but for the day and night vigil of her mother in law, Ammalu, my paternal grand mother, a very kind and capable woman and that debt was paid back to her by my father by caring her in her old age, like his own eyeball.
‘I have observed ‘Shasti vratham’ during the entire period I carried you and I’m confident that you won’t go the wrong way, now or ever’ – those words of my mother has been my safety belt throughout my life.
I feel guilty for not paying back to my mother at least a portion of the affection and care she showered on me, as like my sisters who left home during their early twenties, I too left home and subsequently my parents stayed with me only on a few occasions. I was lucky to be with my father to take care of him during his last days and also do the last rites but in my mother’s case, I could reach home only after her cremation was offer. The destiny allotted that duty and fortune to my brother, Vicha.
Is the task if attending him now allotted to me, just to clear a portion of my old debts to my mom?
The work allotment and wage payments are made by the Master strictly as per our deserving. Have no doubt on that.
You will get what you are due to.