Category: Mother

The Tears of A Mother – Story by Anita Bacha

On 26 Novembre 2012 , I was attending the Conference on Child Welfare and Protection organized by The Hague in Dakar,Senegal.

A writer at heart, I was inspired to pen down this story

The Tears of A Mother

A very long time ago, before God invented the dictionary of words, he sat down and started to create the first human beings. In no time, he produced the writer, the doctor, the moderator, the builder, the vegetable seller, the beautician and many, many others. Last he set out to make the mother.

An angel, who was watching God at work, asked:

“Why do you keep the mother last on the list? She should be the first.”

God answered “It’s not going to be an easy task. For the mother, I have to make more than one pair of hands.”

“Why?” asked the curious angel.

“She needs many pairs of hands as she will have to roll the parathas, check the temperature of the kid who is down with fever, put the dirty linen in the washing machine, answer that phone call and check her email to know how her eldest son is doing abroad and all at the same time!”

“Oh!”

“That’s not all! She will need a few pairs of legs too, to rush to school to drop one kid, to take the other one to the dentist, to run to the market, to collect that parcel from the post-office and all at the same time!”

“She must also have an extra pair of eyes in her back to watch the kids when they are in their room and see that the roast is not burnt whilst she is peeling the potatoes. Her lap must be larger than the average to cradle more than one at a time” continued God “her voice must be hard enough to scold and sweet enough to console.”

“That’s all?” the angel wanted to know.

“She must not only be an example of virtue but she must also be endowed with a few defects – spoiling, smothering, overfeeding her child and doing his home work when he is falling asleep to name a few.”

“She is hard to the touch!” said the angel.

“But as soft as butter inside!” answered God.

“Oh! Oh! God! There is a defect in your manufacture” remarked the angel “look here, there is a leak – water is running down the cheeks.”

“The tears! Of course! This is how the mother expresses her joy, her grief, her relief, her disappointment, her happiness, her sorrow and all her innermost feelings. But mind you, I did not make the tears. No! Niet! Non! Nahin! She made the tears herself.”

Anita Bacha

Happy Reading, My Friends!

Image source internet

Legacy – A Poem by Anita Bacha

In her steps,I tread

Her love a guiding light

With every word she said

She showed me what is right

Lovely as a summer day

She taught me by example

In her own gentle caring way

Her wisdom a precious sample

I picked her pen when she left

Her legacy in my hands

In my poems and in my writes

My mom’s spirit forever stands

Anita Bacha

Cc.Image of A Pen by the author Anita Bacha

The Scent of My Mother

After the Second World War, there was a shortage of food stuffs in the Island. In those years, Mauritius was a colony under the British rule.

Nonetheless, our family did not feel the immediate pangs or the aftermath of the war as we were quite well off. My mother, I fondly remember, splashed herself with Yardley Eau de Cologne every morning after her tub bath. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I could follow her around the whale of a house that we had, sniffing her perfume like a little dog.

My father was a whole sale merchant and he was bringing home our share of ration rice. It was our basic food and also the basic food of the whole population of some 500,000 heads.

A hard, little, yellowish pearl, unpolished and unrefined, my mother told me that this grain of rice came in its husk during the war. In those days called ‘le temps margoze’ (the sour gourd days) by the local people, the women folk had to pound the rice in a mortar to separate the husk from the rice. They used to call it ‘du riz pousse femme’ (the rice that drive women away) because it was a real nightmare for women to pound the rice.

We were fortunate, I gather, because we did not have to pound the rice. But once in a week, in a ceremonial manner my mother sat a small wooden bench and surrounded by the maid servants, they would busy themselves at cleaning the rice. The rice was placed on large aluminum trays in small heaps. It was winnowed and then the grit was separated from the grain. In a small tin, my mother kept the small black stones to throw away and in her lap, the broken rice to feed the birds.

Close to her, on a smaller bench, I sat down to be with her. I felt like a big girl because I could pick out the stones and the broken rice from her heap.

After she had finished and filled a big iron container with the clean rice, I had the liberty to bury my head in the warm and loving lap of my mother. I breathed in the intimate scent of a woman interlaced with the perfume of eau de cologne and the smell of ration rice.

Years after, this scent still filled my whole being with the sweet memory of my mother.

Anita Bacha

Mother and Child image source internet.

Above is a true story. Thank you for reading my dear friends.

Anita Bacha.

Yardley Eau de Cologne image source Internet

My birth mother and my adoptive mother

My Birth Mother and My Adoptive Mother.

Her shiny brown eyes like ripe tamarind pulp,

Her olive color skin, her long flowing black hair,

Her cute oval face and sweet, crying voice,

Her fragrance, vetiver interlaced with wild musk,

Tore my heart apart as I let go of her linen camisole;

She is my mother!

Locked in her arms, I snuggle, forgetful of the world,

Throwing my legs and arms in gleeful abandon,

I yawn,

Languidly I open my eyes,

Her loving, sky blue gaze,

Her porcelain white skin glowing in the sun light,

Her golden curls dancing around her pretty face,

Her perfume, carnation interlaced with red rose,

Fill my heart as I bury my head in her silken stole,

She is my mother!

Mother is the one who renounced me,

Mother is the one who found me,

Mother Is

Mother always will be

Anita Bacha

I am sharing this poem that I wrote a decade ago when I was Head of the Central Authority for Inter-country Adoption , set up by The Hague Conference , in Mauritius. Strange are the ways of God, I found.Not every bud becomes a flower; not every daughter becomes a mother.Anita Bacha.

Illustrative photography: Anita Bacha.