She would scan every corner of the house, on her knees sometimes and then there was her broom. I always perceived the broom as her sword. The moment she had the broom in her hand an image of her sitting on a well bred horse wearing shining armour while raising her sword crossed my head. The moment she struck her broom to the floor I could hear the metal clinging another metal just like in a war. And I wanted to call her Ser instead of Maa. From the battle fields of dirt, she moved into the kitchen. There she revealed another power she had with her, the power to control fire. A semi-circled mount of bricks lay in the middle of our kitchen, covered in wood ash, those bricks had completely lost the red colour they initially possessed, just like the rugged hands of my mother. They must have been soft before but all these years of working has made them hard and rough, I remember Bhaisaab once mentioning about the soft touch of Maa’s hands on his cheeks when he was young. Being the 5th born eluded me from experiencing that but those rough touches for me were softer than a peacock's feather caressing my cheek. There between that semi-circled mount she would light the tiny twigs on fire and then control the fire with a small steel pipe. She would blow into the fire through that pipe and just like that the fire was at her helm. It was so easy for her. So every morning I would see her putting her powers on display for me, she would have the ability to control water, earth and fire. It was something which even the best of super heroes won’t have. She still remains the only super hero in my life and like any other superhero she would quietly use her powers, save the city and no one ever gets to know who the real face behind this masked hero. Those little things which she did guided our lives so much that the day I left her to go and live in the city I felt a paralysis attack running through my nerves when all those chores were encumbered on my back. Most of us don’t even realise that there is a superhero present in our lives disguised as our mother. I saw my mother everyday and wondered what was her salary for putting up with all this everyday and not even getting recognised for it? Later I realised that when your son presents you with a knighthood and he thinks of you as a superhero, you are earning more than any other person on this planet.
