He bought a wall clock for his home - a Seedware brand with a deer-colored
battery-operated digital time clock!
"There was no need for it those days," Alan said to himself as he stood at the cash
desk to settle the bill and gently let his mind fondly reminisce about the
memories of his childhood days.
Truth be told, the Fernandes family did not have a wall clock in those days. Yet,
astonishingly, they never missed any of their appointments and chores that
needed to be attended to, either outdoors or indoors. Mrs. Fernandes knew the
exact time when anything required to be done by her family. She woke up as
early as 5:00 am in the morning, almost the same time the rowdy rooster from
her neighbor Annamma's chicken coop connivingly disrupted the silence of the
dawn with its loud crowing.
By the time she had her morning wash and clean-up, it was time for her to bow
her head with folded hands and bended knees before her creator in the most
refreshing moments of prayer and meditation, which she never missed until she
was bedridden with the advanced stage of Parkinson's disease. Preparing tea in
the morning for the family was her daily ritual, akin to the Japanese tea culture,
undertaken in utmost silence that began at 6:00 am. At 6:30 she woke her
children up, one by one, with a hot steaming cup of tea in her left hand while the
right hand was used for the very gentle spanking of those who would not act
upon her call.
Mr. Fernandes was a night owl, who worked on the night shift on alternate
nights. Hence, whenever he was home, he was allowed to sleep longer than the
rest of the family. She woke him up at 7:30 am with a stainless-steel cup of warm
water in one hand and a porcelain cup of strong, hot tea in the other. He had the
habit of gargling his throat with warm water as soon as he got up from the bed.
The children went off to school at 9:00 am and came back home only around
5:00 pm. While the children were away at school, Mrs. Fernandes tidied the
house, did the laundry, cooked lunch, and ate her lunch alone most afternoons,
and prepared the evening tea and snacks and kept them ready to be served for
the kids when they came back from school. The kids got back to their study
around 6:30 pm.
At 7:30 pm, the whole family gathered in their living room for prayer. Most days
their evening prayer consisted of reciting the rosary and singing a few devotional
hymns. On some occasions, however, Mrs. Fernandes would read a short passage
from the scripture. The female folks in the house were the ones who took the
lead in singing, as it was entrusted to them as their sacred responsibility. Alan's
elder brother had a good singing voice too, but it remained a hidden talent for a
long time before he ever sang one. Alan used to sing as best he could. However,
noticing the bewildered expressions on the faces of his two sisters at his singing,
he groomed himself to be an admirer of other people's singing rather than a
singer himself. The lead role, however, hand-picked by Mrs. Fernandes for Alan,
was that he would go into the kitchen from time to time to check the fire in the
wooden oven on which the supper was being cooked. Mr. Fernandes was not
present for family prayers, not that he was a heathen or an atheist. He just did
not join the family for evening prayers, a practice which the menfolk of their
town diligently followed as their birthright of being male.
They had their supper at 8:30 pm, and everyone was present for it except Mr.
Fernandes on nights when he was working. Mrs. Fernandes always did the
washing after all meals. Initially, Alan used to think that his mom liked doing the
washing and the cleaning up at home. But gradually, it dawned on him that it
wasn't true that the womenfolk liked this role, but it was forced upon them.
A
cultural gift of role differentiations that tied women to house chores!
After dinner, around 9:30 pm, the kids gathered around the radio, mostly to
listen to songs. Mr. Fernandes would settle at his desk, catching up with the
remaining reading of the daily newspaper that obviously did not have much
readership, neither at his home nor outside. On Sundays, however, he joined the
kids by the radio to listen to classic plays that were aired.
At 10:30 pm, Mrs. Fernandes would send the kids off to bed. She, however, did
not go to bed until midnight.
True, the Fernandes did not have a clock, but still, they were all able to perform
the entire day's duties and responsibilities on time. No one missed any major
appointments, school work, or travel as scheduled. All this was possible because
Mrs. Fernandes was there to see that everyone was prompted on time to follow
their schedule for the day.
She was their time clock! The clock that kept accurate time, never slow and never
fast!
Mrs. Fernandes is no more, and needless to mention, the family schedules were
getting terribly messed up. This was why Alan came to buy the clock.
As Alan left the shop carrying the newly bought wall clock in his office bag, he
was struggling very hard to control the emotions that overwhelmed him at the
reminiscing of his memories of his mother. Even in the midst of the
overwhelming tides of emotions that rocked him, he heard himself saying
inwardly, "I know, mom, for sure, this clock would never be as accurate as you!"
