Our Mohana Chitti

 Our Mohana Chitti

She was a woman shaped by the times she was born into — a woman who spent her life battling the quiet weight of patriarchy while trying to hold a family together. Beneath the stern shadow of a domineering mother-in-law, she never truly found a voice she could call her own. Instead, she poured every ounce of herself into raising her children, believing that one day they would become her strength, her refuge, and the voice she herself was denied.

But life did not unfold the way she had hoped. There came a painful moment when she realised that the very children she had raised with sacrifice and devotion could not become the promises she had built her heart around. They needed more from her, even when she had already given everything she had. Beside her stood a husband who remained alive through the years, yet never truly became her defender or her voice.

All she ever longed for was simple — for someone to truly listen to her.

And then came the cruel irony of time. A woman who once fed all of us with unconditional love, with little treats from her humble nature garden and meals prepared with affection, eventually had to depend on others even to feed herself. I was always one of the fortunate recipients of her quiet love. Even as I grew into a man, I never realised how deeply I still sought her acceptance and warmth. She gave me love in abundance, yet somewhere within her lived the unspoken hope that she, too, would receive the same tenderness from her own children.

Despite the poverty, love always lingered in the air around her. But in her later years, she suffered in silence — literally in silence. Decisions were made for her, even about her own body, while her voice remained unheard, as it had for most of her life. She endured everything without protest, carrying pain with the same quiet dignity with which she had carried love.

And now she is gone.

Gone beyond the suffering, beyond the disappointments, beyond the silence that caged her spirit for so long. Was it patriarchy she fought against, or was it the conditioning of an entire upbringing? Perhaps it was both. And despite all the love she carried within her, love alone was not enough to withstand the harsh demands of the world around her.

Now she is free. Her voice belongs to the Lord. And she will always remain in memory as a humble soul filled with deep wisdom about life — wisdom that, tragically, was never enough to save her from the life she herself had to endure.