A Mother’s Dream

Address to the students of Delhi Public School, Varanasi

14 March 2012

Let me tell you the story of Sulochana from Karnataka, who wrote to me about her mother. She said that her mother was born in a very poor family and hence was unable to achieve her dream of getting a degree—she only went to primary school. This made her resolve to educate her children so that they would get high-level degrees and work at great companies. She struggled very hard to convince Sulochana’s father to put Sulochana and her sister in a good school. Her mother fasted for two to three days in order to make her father accept that the children should be put in the best school regardless of the expense.

Finally she succeeded, and in gratitude she promised that she would never ask anything else of him. She was satisfied that her children were going to get a good education, which she hadn’t been able to herself. Sulochana writes, ‘Now, she is very happy that I, her eldest daughter, am going to complete my engineering degree with a job in a multinational company through campus recruitment. When my mother heard that I had secured a job, she was very happy that I had fulfilled her dream. I saw her smiling at me with tears in her eyes, saying, “Congrats, my dear daughter”’. A mother’s love can indeed make children excel.