Conversations with my Mother

By Shyam Selvadurai (page 1 of 5)

In 1975, my parents made a significant trip to America. My father was taking my mother so that she could decide if she would like to live there. He was a tennis coach and, in the past few years, had been teaching at a prestigious Massachusetts country club. They were offering him full-time work. My mother was a doctor. By sitting for a simple exam (simple for her, as she had a real knack for exams) she could re-qualify as a doctor. The lifestyle they were contemplating was definitely an upper-middle class one, with very few of the stresses and strains most immigrants face upon arrival in a new country. The decision was entirely up to my mother. Whatever she wanted, my father would abide by it. She said no.

I telephone my mother to ask her why she said no, all those years ago. She has only one word- "lifestyle." Her voice lingers over the "l" drawing it out in a quiet sigh. Immediately an image rises in my mind.

We are at the swimming club, clouds like gauze scarves flutter in the blue sky. My mother descends slowly down the steps into the water. "Ma-Ma-Mummy!" We children make a furious dash across the pool towards her, each determined to get there first. She raises her hand, palm outwards. A nervous swimmer, she does not like being splashed. I am the best non-splasher. As my mother glides out down the pool, her head above the water, I stay as close to her as I can. I love the feel of her legs kicking the water behind us, the smell of her perfume mingled with the chlorine on her skin. To me there is no one more beautiful than my mother in her purple one-piece bathing suit.

Later, when the sun is too fierce for swimming we will return home. Sunday lunch is always special. I can almost taste the explosion of flavours in my mouth, the buttery yellow rice scattered with sultanas and cashews, nutty eggplant moju, succulent chicken curry, devil-shrimp, dhall, fish cutlets, and chocolate biscuit pudding for dessert. We come running into the house, ahead of my mother, go to wash our hands, take our places at the table. We bow our head for Grace. My father thanks God for our meal, for the fact that we have food. It never crosses his mind, or indeed strikes any of us, to offer up thanks to the maid who laid the table, to the cook who made this lunch.

My mother, on the other end of the telephone, breaks into my reverie "Then, there was the Lodge."

The Lodge. Or to give it its full name, The Ibis Safari Lodge.

My father was a man who took his passions, his great loves, and turned them into money. Even before I was born, he abandoned the steady climb up the corporate ladder that his schooling and family background ensured. He had played Davis Cup for Sri Lanka and had been the National tennis champion and he decided to go to Australia and qualify as a tennis coach. His other great passion was wild-life and, in the early seventies, he became the first person in Sri Lanka to offer safaris. So successful was this venture that he built a hotel - the Lodge - to house his tourists.