Myriad Reflections. Shastri Akella

What mother knows
A grainy silence, rivaling the uneven surface of the sheets I am about to etch my thoughts on, fills my mind with a curious thought: my life as I understand it from keenly observed memories is incomplete: an unfinished manuscript, some vital images of early days, conspicuous by their absence. Who would know of those times better than mother?
Mothers, the keepers of the dusty, forgotten corners of the heart. So I set to work describing the images mother would recount unto me, if I were to ask her what she recalled of my toddler days. Topping the list is a bucket full of bathwater: soapy, a little dirty, and freshly drawn from the baby tub, its rippling, unclear contents reflecting a distorted version of the smile that twinkles on mother’s face as she watches the dew-fresh, petal-tender, pink skin of her child. Then comes the Johnson & Johnson baby oil bottle, its pink cap carelessly open – an otherwise meticulous woman forgetting to do the needful, in the hurry to invite the sleep that dances uncertainly over her baby’s eyes.
There is also the little soft toy of a puppy – his red tongue foolishly jutting out of an obnoxiously wide mouth, his sleepy button eyes casting a bored look, and a sienna coat rising alluringly over soft masses of cotton. A black dot suddenly appears in my field of imagination, and I add it eagerly to my list: a single dot of kohl, placed by a trembling, affection forefinger onto a cushion-soft cheek to ward off evil spirits. And of course the song proclaiming the virtues of Ram, sung as it is, placing the tender head of the child in the crook of the arm, and imbuing a fondness for immortal mythology in the blank mind sheets of incipient days. Finally, for some strange reason, I scribble the name of an audio cassette – its black body covered with layers of dust; it is a collection of mother’s favorite songs, and like the many things she savors, it has remained discarded in the wake of the newfound responsibility of child-raising.
These vivid images that I conjured from a burgeoning imagination worthy of a budding writer require affirmation from mother, and I wait for her return from the temple, fingers clutching onto those crusty sheets. I give the list a fancy title: “What mother knows”. It is the languid hour of afternoon, the heated fingers of the hour numbing my mind with a touch of somnolence. I drift into sleep, and when I awake, dusk has almost set in. The horizon is tinted with an amalgamation of ochre and crimson. I realize that the paper – that I slept clinging onto – is neatly folded and placed under a lamp on the bedside table. I open the paper, and decide on approaching mother, when I notice that the last item on the list has been struck off, and below it is scribbled in an affectionately familiar handwriting – the words curving and slanting like delightful terrains of nature and stating: “An ocean of love that only a child creates in the life of his mother”. And just then, finger run through my hair, the moment of familiar touch filling my eyes with unbidden tears, and my mind with a solitary thought: love experienced, in a little corner of the world.