EAT, MY SON, EAT.
`Where was I all these years, mother?'
`In the womb of my desire.'
`And you, mother?'
`In the dreams of your father, my dear.'
`And father, what was he doing?'
`He was in search of us both.'
`Son dear, it is time for you to eat now.'
`Mother!'
`Yes.'
`Why should I eat?'
`To become strong like Rama.'
`Who was Rama?'
`You have already forgotten that story!
Rama was also a child like you.
One day he cried for the Moon in the sky.
His mother showed him the Moon
in a mirror to make him smile.
Now we worship Him.
He's our God.'
`Why is Rama our God?'
'Because He punished all the bad people
with his bow and arrow.'
`Like the one I play with?'
`Yes, but with one still bigger than yours.'
`Why did Rama punish them?'
`They were all bad, dear little one.'
`What is bad, mother?'
`That which is not good.'
`What is good, mother?'
`You are good, son.'
`And you, mother?'
`Good when you smile like the full moon in the blue sky
Bad when you smear your body with all the dust in the world!'
`Mother, I will always be good.'
`Eat, then.'
`I will, if you sing a song.'
`You naughty boy, may Hanuman protect you, my little monkey!
Even before I was married to your father
and crossed the doorstep of this mud house,
You were born in my dreams
when as a child I was playing
with my pretty dolls of wood;
Little one, if you smile,
the world for me is a heaven brought to the Earth,
But if you cry,
my heart quivers as the leaf does
when the mad wind blows past it.
`Eat, my son, eat now.'
Note: This conversational poem was written long long ago,
in the sixties, if I remember right. The poem was written
as a response to a black and white photograph of a mother
and a child published in the Illustrated Weekly of India.
J K Mohana Rao
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