English Vinglish – Not my MOM!

English-Vinglish_Movie


The totally bang on performance by Sridevi as the oft-neglected and totally underrated mom in a busy home tugged at all our heartstrings. But it is a theme common to all our homes on so many levels.



How many of us can truly “cross our heart and hope to die” and say we have never been rude to our mom because she could not follow something new or fathom our latest gizmo or the fad of the week.

I can honestly say that “Yes I have been rude to mum, even told her that she is losing it”. The fact is that when we speak like this to our mother’s we think we are superior to her.

Why do we forget that she is the one who has made us capable of achieving all this success and advancement in our lives? She is the one who backed us all the way and sat by our side for the late nights and long shifts.

We all were full of praise for the proactive approach Sridevi adopted in the movie and that too on foreign soil, but to think of it, she really felt the full brunt of her inadequacy when she tried to navigate her way on the streets of Manhattan.



If anyone is given an option, I am sure all of us would rather “swim than sink”. Making an effort to better ourselves is a human nature and inbuilt advantage that has helped us become the superior animal on this planet.

All our mothers must be having one or more things that they absolutely refuse to do. My aunt, actually two of them absolutely refuse to get into a lift unless it’s to go up 10 floors or more, even they tell someone else to do it for them. Another lady I know refuses to use the universal maid of all progressive women “the food processor”. She says it’s too cumbersome and it’s faster to do it on my own rather fix the machine. I am sure all of you could easily recount a few of the never to be done things by your respective moms.

For me my mom like many of us refuses to learn the computer, yes she likes my touch screen smartphone. Yes, she loves the advantages of technology, telling me or my sis-in-law to access Skype for her or show her what her relatives abroad have been doing on Facebook. She even tells us to file her complaints online, sends emails for her queries and Googles her latest medicines and their pros & cons.



But she just does not touch the Machine, whether it’s my new latest laptop or my father’s old one or if it’s the trusty desktop in my dad’s office. Her excuse is “What if something goes wrong or if the button she presses kills, yes kills the machine?”

What my mother did manage to do is that she started using a smartphone and now has shut me up nicely:) Whether to chat on Whatsapp or post on Facebook, she does it all by herself but on her trusted smartphone.

I am sure all of us can easily fill pages with things our mom refuses to learn but what we want is for them to kill the fear and take a step forward, after all, there is no learning without mistakes, right? At least that’s what my mom taught me.






Comments

  1. Akshata

    I think my mom is a resilient lady and forever challenges herself. Be it learning computers at 40 or learning to ride a bike when we started schooling and fixing the electric stuff. Though i have been rude to her at times and I mostly regret it late. Loved the analogy you drew to the movie to bring to light this topic

  2. Lata Sunil

    I loved this movie and it has very important lessons. My mom was scared of checking messages on her cell, saving contact numbers.. after seeing this movie, she learnt it. One more thing she doesnt do is use the ATM. These are basic things they need to pick up I feel, but mom doesn’t listen.

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