Marathi Mother

     "Aee" pronounced "a" as in banana and "ee" as is "tea" means mother in Marathi, the local language of many Indian people in the state of Maharashtra, the state in which I have resided the last few months. When my roommate and I first met our host mother, three months or so ago, the first thing we asked was what we may address her as, and she replied, "Aee." At the time, this seemed sweet, even endearing, but I had no idea how much it would come to mean in a few months.
    It was not until I called out "Aye," how I had been addressing my host mother out of misunderstanding how to pronounce the Marathi word for mother, one day from the street, up to the window of the flat, to try to get my host mother's attention, and two young men passing by snickered over my act, that I thought to ask my host mother about the word "Aye." After I get upstairs and inside the apartment and relate the events to my host mother, she smiles. "Aye," she tells me, is not the Marathi word for mother, it actually means nurse-servant, one who works as a servant in hospitals. Things began making sense, like why my host mother's family also had a little giggle when I called my host mother "Aye." Feeling at first horrible that I was mistakenly insulting my host mother, my roommate, and later me too, got a good laugh out of the whole scenario.My host mother, told me to not worry, because she said that the pronunciation didn't matter, it was only the love between us that matter. Because she felt that the love was there, she never corrected me.
    And, because I love her, I now proudly call my host mother, my "Aee."