I Am My Mother's Older Brother

As the onset of dementia reshapes their world, a daughter becomes her mother's carer and keeper while navigating grief, duty, and unwavering love

- BY Sujatha Gidla

FOR A LONG TIME, it was my fervent wish that my parents would come live with me after their retirement. But my father died, and my mother refused. She insisted on living entirely on her own terms. Only when she became completely dependent in every way, did my wish come true.

I am my mother's eldest, the one who first gave her the experience of childbirth and of being a mother. All her ideas of how to raise children with care and a scientific temperament she put into practice on me. By the time my sister and brother came along, idealism had given way to practicality.

When I was five years old, her older brother—who was also her father, mother, and best friend—went underground to organise landless peasants to take up arms against landlords. It was a great loss to my mother. She needed to talk about him, and in me she found a rapt and sympathetic listener. In this way, she transmitted to me his ideals, which she shared—justice, equality, solidarity with the poor and oppressed.

Growing up in the small South Indian town of Kakinada, I was keenly sensitive to my mother’s troubles in life. She was burdened every morning with the drudgery of cleaning dishes, washing clothes, cooking. Then hurrying off to college to give lectures in history. When she returned late in the evening, again she had to cook and clean.

In her appearance, she was extremely modest, partly because we had little to spend and partly because she had no time to think of clothes or jewellery. Her personality was a curious mix. To almost everyone, friend or stranger, she was pleasing to a fault. But when it came to confronting social evils, as when she stood up in public meetings to make a speech, she was fierce. Many people admired her: neighbours, her students, my father’s students, my teachers, my classmates, their parents, activists of all kinds. They came to her for solace and advice, and she would always go out of her way to help them.