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Dedicated to my godson, Oskar
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
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The next morning for breakfast we had sambal ( a mixture of coconut, onion, chili, pepper, and salt) with white bread. I felt reminded of my schooltime in Puthur, when every morning we had bread and sambal. My mother spent the whole morning washing my father’s laundry in the bath. I thought it was terrible, I could barely watch her and see how she had so little strength, had to do all this washing by hand. She wouldn’t allow help either. That my mother had to torture herself in this way, made me angry. When she was finally finished, I was allowed to help her after all that, with hanging the clothing in the garden on the clothesline between the two pear trees. While doing this I was able to press a lot of water out of the clothes. That showed me how weak my mother had become.
I would like very much to ask my sister and brother-in-law why my mother was not allowed to use the washing machine. But in the home of my bil it was not allowed, in Tamil tradition, to say something, let alone to criticize or even to pitch in. Because he had married my sister, my bil had to be treated with gratitude and respect. Nor even was I allowed to intervene, even when he kicked her while she was holding her one-week baby in her arms. This event caused me sleepless nights. How bad it must have been for my mother to see how her daughter was beaten by her son-in-law. Until today I have not been able to speak with my mother about it.
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