CHENNAI: A mother’s words often stay with us long after the conversation ends, becoming a part of our everyday lives.
From gentle advice to strict warnings and everyday reminders, every mother has a signature line.
On Mother’s Day, Chennaiites share the sentences from their mothers that they can never forget
When I put something in the wrong place, my mom is always ready with this phrase: ‘There is a place for everything, and everything in its place,’ because she likes to keep our house spick and span. So even if I am in a hurry, she makes me put misplaced things back in their proper place. She calls it ‘laziness,’ but I call it a ‘sense of urgency.’
—Vania Vriksha, student
One thing my mother always says is that the most important thing in a family is communication. To keep a family intact, even if you have to give a little extra sometimes, it is okay.
She believes that the strength and support a family gives you cannot be replaced by anyone else. That is why she always says family should come first and everything else can follow later.
First, build your relationship with your family members, spend time with them and be there for them. According to her, family is the support system that will stand by you whenever there is a need or difficult situation. So, always invest time in your family.
—Varsha Sundararajan,
co-founder of Quilt India FoundationMy mother, Vijayalaxmi Sundararajan, always says, ‘We can manage this.’ That one sentence gives me enormous strength and courage to face any situation, and somehow, it always works.
Every difficult or messy situation was eventually handled and even though I struggled through many of them, it taught me never to run away from a problem.
My mother always says to live life with integrity and honesty and everything else will take care of itself.
Isuppose there is one question I hear from her every day that is also a statement: ‘Saptiya?’ / ‘Did you eat?’ Most of my conversations with my mother, especially after moving abroad, start with this. I think it almost sets the tone for the rest of the conversation for her.
My entire family is a ‘hangry’ family, and the first thing Amma does is make sure everyone has eaten and is in good health, and then calm down any heightened emotions that may simply come from an empty stomach.
As a child and even later in my 20s after moving to the USA, I used to notice how parents there ended calls or conversations with an ‘I love you,’ and I would make fun of my mother and appa for never saying that.
But with age, I’ve realised this is her love language and actually, mine too.
Waking up at 5 am to make me chai during board exams, silently placing a plate next to me in the middle of a meeting, or staying on a phone call across the world while I cook after a long day and ending the call only after I take my first bite…those are all countless ways of saying, ‘I love you.’