Mother – Anita Bacha

Hari, Krishna and the Magic Pot – Short Story by Anita Bacha

Once there was a little boy who lived with his poor, widowed mother in a far away village.

His name was Hari. During school holidays he had no friend with whom to play. His mother was a loving woman and played with him when she was not busy with her household chores. One day, however, she fell ill and Hari became very lonely. His mother consoled him and told him to go out and play with Krishna.

‘Who is Krishna?’ Hari asked his mother.

‘Krishna is the friend of all!’

Hari rushed out eagerly calling ‘Krishna! Krishna!’

‘Hello!’ said a cow herd boy coming from behind a tree ‘why are you calling my name?’

“Let’s play!’ Hari uttered with joy.

They played together during the school holidays.

Back to school, Hari told the school master about his new friend, Krishna. The school master listened to his story but did not believe a word of it.

Soon it was the birthday of the school master. Hari became very sad; he had no money to buy him a birthday present. His mother then reminded him of his friend Krishna.

‘Go and talk to your friend Krishna’ she told Hari, ‘he will surely help you!’

Hari did as he was told and Krishna gave him a pot of butter milk.

‘Here! This is a birthday present for your school master!’

Unfortunately, the school master was not happy with the present. He scorned at it and asked his servant to throw the milk curd away. The servant complied but amazingly, the pot was filled with milk curd again. After several attempts to empty the pot, he ran to the school master to tell him about the incredible happening.

‘What!’ the school master exclaimed ‘it must be a magic pot!’ He immediately summoned Hari and asked him about the source of the pot.

When Hari replied that his friend Krishna gave it to him, the school master asked him to take him to Krishna immediately.

‘I want to see your friend!’ he exclaimed.

The school master followed Hari to the place where he met Krishna. At the top of his voice, Hari called for his friend but Krishna did not appear. Then from behind a tree, they heard another voice:

‘Why are you calling me Hari ?’

Hari recognized the voice of his friend Krishna. He replied:

‘My school master wants to see you.’

‘The school master cannot see me, Hari because no one can see me unless he believes in me!’ said the voice gently but firmly.

The school master was bowled over. He returned to the school with his tail between his legs.

Anita Bacha

This short story is about faith and belief, my dear friends. I first heard it when I was a kid and,from my mom, a great devotee of the Indian God Lord Krishna. As a matter of fact, HARI is another name of Lord KRISHNA but my mom was very smart at story telling. Only later in life I found out her ingenuity in teaching me the use of words.

Anita Bacha

The Song of the Cuckoo

a person should be honest in the first instance
no matter how harsh the truth is

Once, the mother of Mahatma Gandhi, Putlibai Gandhi was fasting and she let it be known that she would break the fast only when the she heard the song of the cuckoo.

She waited a long time but, alas, the cuckoo did not sing. Gandhi Ji was a small child then and he felt very sad that his mom would not take a morsel of food.

A brilliant idea crossed the mind of the adoring child. He rushed to the back garden and imitated the song of the cuckoo. He came back to the house, went up to his mom and said-
‘Maa, you can eat now; the cuckoo has sung!’

His mom unfortunately would not be fooled and she got very angry.
‘I am ashamed to have a son like you!’ she said.
’How can you speak such a lie? A lie is a sin!’ she added.

Gandhi Ji was heartbroken. He realized that his mother was extremely upset. He also understood that he had made a big mistake by lying to his mother. From that moment, he vowed that he would never tell a lie in his whole life. He never did.

Mother is, undoubtedly, our first and most important teacher. The bond of love between mother and child is sacred. It is the purity of this relationship that makes every lesson, that we learn from our mother, a lesson for life. We may forget what the school master teaches but, not what is taught by our mother.

Gandhi believed in honesty. Trying to conceal a lie may require a person to lie even more and this becomes a vicious circle. Therefore, a person should be honest in the first instant, no matter how harsh the truth is.

The Scent of a Woman

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

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

Anita Bacha.

Celebrating Mother’s Day – Footprints -A Poem by Anita Bacha

Happy Mother’s Day!
Sharing a poem dedicated to my mother who passed at the age of 42 after a long illness of innumerable years.

FOOTPRINTS

She was walking on the beach
A long skirt hiding her knees
Dotted with tiny blue florets
A white linen blouse flattened her bosom
Prude,
She never wore a bathing suit

Immaculate as the sunset
Pretty as a picture
Mysterious as the sea
Smiling to herself
Poetic, in love, sweet,
A dreamer
She fell in love only once
People said
The blessed day was her wedding day

A long trail of foot steps
She left
Printed in the moist sand
In joyous innocence
Behind her I walked
Placing my steps
One by one in her wake
She was the apple of my eye!
She was my mother! She is my inspiration!

Anita Bacha

Published in my book SOUL POETRY (2015) under the title ‘The Apple of My Eye’.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Poetry-Inspirational-Verses-Quotes-ebook/dp/B0794SD2BH/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=soul+anita+bacha&qid=1653829246&sr=8-1

Thank you for reading

Anita Bacha

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.

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