My mother has always been an Arasa Maram — the அரசமரம் (Arasa maram),
the peepal tree that reaches for the light.
That’s how I’ve come to see her.
It’s how her life has always looked and felt to me, standing beneath her shade.
I don’t know if she would describe herself that way.
Maybe she’d simply say she did what needed to be done.
But from where I stand, it was faith —
the kind that keeps breathing even when the night is long.
She grew up in a world where standing tall was the only way to stay safe.
Where feelings were luxuries.
Where silence was strength.
Where faith meant holding it all together when no one else could.
So she learned early to grow upward —
to reach for light through discipline and determination.
She became the kind of woman who could hold everything without breaking,
who could breathe for others when they couldn’t find their own air.
That’s how I remember her:
steady, proud, anchored in duty,
certain that faith would meet her halfway
if she just kept moving forward.
And I grew up beneath that kind of strength.
It taught me how to stand.
It taught me to work, to endure, to rise.
It shaped how I saw faith — as movement, progress, striving.
It gave me breath.
It gave me will.
In time, I became an Arasa Maram too —
rooted in responsibility, always reaching, always trying to hold everything together.
It was the only kind of strength I knew.
I thought being faithful meant standing firm, even when I was tired.
But parenthood changes how you understand love.
When my children came into the world —
two small sparks of life, each shining with their own light —
something in me began to soften.
They didn’t need me to tower over them; they needed me to sit beside them.
To hold, not to hurry.
To give shade, not instruction.
And slowly, through them, Christ began turning me into an Aala Maram — the ஆலமரம் (Aala maram),
the banyan.
Not reaching higher, but growing wider.
Not chasing light, but learning to become a home for it.
From my mother, I learned the spirit of kindness — that sharing is joy.
Even in her hardest seasons, she gave.
A meal. A smile. A small act of care — never for show, always for love.
And somewhere in those gestures, I caught the spark she carried quietly:
“What more could you have given?”
That question stayed with me.
It became the bridge between her world and mine —
the measure of faith not by success, but by surrender.
Still, life has a way of turning us over.
Through migrations, ruptures, and quiet losses,
the ground beneath me began to move.
The things that once defined strength — success, order, control — began to loosen their hold.
And somewhere in that undoing, Christ met me.
Not as someone above to reach for,
but as someone beside me — present, patient, near.
Not the Christ of distance,
but the Christ of proximity.
The one who doesn’t ask you to rise,
but to stay.
That meeting changed how I understood faith —
and how I understood her.
The Arasa Maram and the Aala Maram are both Ficus trees.
They share the same sap, the same life,
the same breath of God moving through them.
One reaches upward.
The other reaches outward.
Both are sacred.
She gave me the breath to rise.
Christ, through my children, is giving me the roots to remain.
And in this season of discernment, that’s what I’m seeking —
not a title, not a platform,
but a garden where this kind of tree can grow.
A place where breath and root meet again,
where faith can become both light and shade.
Because maybe calling isn’t about choosing
between the tree you were born from
and the one you’re becoming.
Maybe it’s about realizing that the seed your mother planted
was always meant to find new soil —
and that grace is what happens when love learns to grow in both directions.
And as I keep growing —
between breath and root, between reaching and resting —
I hear her question again, gentle as ever:
“What more could you have given?”
It’s no longer a challenge.
It’s a prayer.
And maybe that’s what faith really is —
to keep asking, even now,
what more can I give?
⸻