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Special Mother’s Day Podcast (in Meitei-Lon/Manipuri language) with Madam Saroj Nalini, mother of 4 children, sharing her journey of being a Mother.  She lost her Father when she was only 6 months old, after that her birth mother came back to her maternal home, and she was raised by her grandmother and calls her grandmother “Ema” (Mother) and her birth mother “Eche” (Sister).  She always thought her mother is her grandmother but when she grew up and came to know her sister is her birth mother, and the trauma and embarrassment she went through when her birth mother got married when she was a teenager. She had this mental shock and depression, was so embarrassed to mix around with her friends, cried a lot going through that phase.

Growing up, when we asked her about her parents, she told us that she was adopted by her grandmother and that she was found under the big Banyan tree at Kwakeithel Bazaar (this tree is no longer there now, but when I was small I remember seeing that tree) and we all believed it .. until later when we grew up. She shares her memoirs of answering questions from her son on who are her parents, why she is not going for “Ningol Chakouba”, the biggest festival celebrated for daughters/sisters in Manipur ?

She shares interesting incidents as a Mother raising her kids within the economic and financial constraints, mental state she was in. This is the first part of her podcast for Mother’s Day. Please continue tuning in for Episode 35 to listen to the continuation of this podcast where she shares her memoirs of her kids and her daughter trying to express her thanks and saying sorry for some of the incidents !!

Coming from a background where emotional words are not spoken, love, appreciation, sorry are not explicitly expressed (maybe written in letters), kind of assumed from actions . It is difficult to really speak out emotions!! But seeing how wonderful it is to hear when emotions are spoken out ….. to make an effort to be expressive, for Mother’s Day 2013, FindingTheVoices initiated the exercise to pause and express our words to Mothers thanking and taking a moment to say sorry for any incident …. Many of our Guest Speakers, listeners participated sharing beautiful childhood pictures, beautiful write-up honoring, thanking and saying sorry to Mothers. And I took this opportunity to share my thoughts with my Mother. And yes this was the first time we spoke about this … it was really tough !!! but I felt really great after saying and sharing with my Mother. Yes Madam Saroj Nalini is my mother, my best friend.