My mother learning a new name

My mother is seventy-one and has a notebook for everything — grocery lists, her blood pressure readings, the birthdays of relatives she refuses to save in her mobile.

When I told her I am a woman, and that my name is Neelam, she did not say anything for a whole day. The next morning I found her at the dining table with her notebook open. On a fresh page, in her careful handwriting, she had written my new name ten times, like a child practising letters.

"I will get it wrong," she said, not looking up. "For a while. You must correct me."

She did get it wrong, many times. She would stop in the middle of a sentence, cross something out in the air with her finger, and start again. Sometimes she cried. Sometimes I did.

Six months later, a neighbour dropped by and asked about "your son". My mother put down her cup and said, very clearly, "I have a daughter. Neelam. She is a teacher."

The notebook is still in her drawer. Last week I saw a new page — she is practising "she" and "her" in Bengali, because she says it sounds different in her own language, and she wants to get that right too.