The rising sun peeks through the window pampering my eyes, making me stand on my feet. Opening the window brings the morning coolness to my room and creates an atmosphere to enjoy the rhythm of earth. The soft purr of my pet, the singing pigeon, barking dogs, the busy insects on their morning run, fluttering butterflies, birds and bugs, the morning dew, falling leaves and even the cricket’s piercing jingle gives a magnificent music to our earth.
“Wow, this is enchantingly beautiful”, Tina exclaimed. These tones are interrelated, high pitched, and even more enjoyable than the music in a pub. The lizard supported me by making his ‘tuh, tuh” voice.
The leaves start their humming along with the tuning wind and drag the unruly curly hair spread on my face. I cried, “Oh! Mama, you are so correct… The beat of our earth is incredibly striking. Now, I experience and enjoy your words that you had penned in your diary- Start to love your mother”. I breathe heavily to feel you during the rain, imagining the drops are kisses from you, mother!!”
‘Tak, tak’… Here comes grandma distracting my day dreams knocking the door and requesting me to come down. Someone is waiting there for me to show up. After my morning routine, I descend down as if in a silent world rallying to an Olympics ground. Meanwhile I shut my ears tightly to avoid an artificial array of voices such from the television, radio, relatives and so on which caused disturbance to my mother’s preferred music. I slowly move down the stairs reach the drawing room as if in a trance. It’s packed with relatives. I can hear my name repeated in television along with my candid shots.
“Tina, the young bud who won an award for the Art and Environment Novel Writing”- the anchor’s voice echoed several times around the room, blurring out from the T.V. My eyes flash, screening the journalists who are waiting for an interview with me and the relatives with their handful of sweets.
I am the center of attraction for them today. As a statue, the award doesn’t get the sweetness to my heart and everybody has been waiting for me to speak.
“Everything is because of my mother”, a swift answer comes from me.
“Do you mean mother earth?” a journalist inquired.
“If we love our mother, we will love our nature. Love our mother first, then nature loves you back”, I replied proudly and turned towards the stairs.
I lock myself back in the room and lost in thoughts, I feel guilty and remorse with my action. “I’m not the correct person to receive this award”, I chant it again and again with my lips. I can’t control the flow of my emotions. Tomorrow I am visiting visit Delhi to receiving an eco-aesthetic award for my novel “IN THE LAP OF MOTHER EARTH”. In truth, it belongs to my mother who is no more. I feel derision with my action of stealing mama’s life and with that feeling I shrink into myself like a snail withdrawing into its shell.
In the calmness of the night I lean back on my mother’s arm chair in the balcony. As I close my eyes, memories of mama flow through my mind. It brings an image of my mother kissing and patting on my forehead. My eyes open widely with pleasure and presence of mama. For a moment I keep her diary very close to my heart, going through it once more. It begins with the note, “Don’t wound the heart of a mother by wounding the cosmos. To realize the incredible beauty of the universe you should be in harmony with the heartbeat of the nature. I will teach my little one how to enjoy the nature’s beauty without harming it”…
“Mama, I learned, practiced and experienced it through your words in this diary”, Tina murmured and carried on reading.
…As I stand on the balcony, the wind swings a cradle on my curly hair and the bees buzz me a lullaby. The rain drops plant a bindhi on my forehead. The mist gave me a quivering cold and the rising sun gave sweet warmth to the little life sleeping calmly in my womb. My baby also seemed to be enjoying it by communicating her pleasure with soft movements of her tiny limbs. The dog, the cat and even the cricket‘s chipping delighted my baby. Even a vision of the fluttering butterflies, I believe made my unborn, mentally powerful. The pigeons for sure, were the peace of our life. “Oh baby, you will taste the great sweetness of our cosmos. I will do whatever to handover these great blessings to you, dear”.
Entering the kitchen, I saw grandma cooking my breakfast. As far as I was concerned she was wasting her time, destroying the vegetables by oozing its vitamins and minerals boiling and draining. Ignoring it and eating a fresh banana with a cup of milk, I fed me and my little one. Surely it had nourished my baby who was happily resting in my womb.
Anyway I took a pledge in giving particular care to teach my child the actual love towards nature and its real taste. The fragrance of my lovely roses took me to the garden. “How gorgeously pretty would it be….an assortment of flowers in a variety of clusters”, I muttered with pride. “Where is my ‘Little Rose’? My sight wandered around. ‘Little Rose’ was a replica like me in my blossoming state and the center figure of garden. She stood radiantly as a queen in the middle of my patch and was going to deliver a new bud soon like myself. Whatever happened to ‘Little Rose’, affected me too. The fragrance of the white, yellow, red and even the blue blooms soaked the garden. Accidently the thorns of rose bushes prickle me light, while I strolled among the flowers. I tenderly removed it with care as the little thorns were safe guarding the little rose blossoms. I muttered this valuable lesson to the life in my womb. Between the bushes I saw a bee caught in a web. I saved its life by tearing the web. But the bee expressed its gratitude by pricking on my ring finger. I touched the womb by saying,
“Tina, they are not our enemies but they have done it only for their safety. It shows their desire for life”, in the mean time I felt a soft touch on my womb.
I sharpened my ears for a while to enjoy the music of birds but I saw some butterflies around, “Tina dear, you might be unlucky to see the beauty of birds. By your time the birds can only be seen in a bird’s sanctuary”. Tina disagreed with a soft kick. The violent waves from the nearest sea distracted my ears. It might be challenging the destructive nature of humans, I thought. The sight of the beach along with the roaring sea, near to my plot had beckoned me several times. But I had thankfully rejected due to its sorrowful view of dumped waste materials and mining pits all around the shore. It should never be a model for Tina, I had noted in my heart. This surely was a wound on our earth.
It clicked my mind that at 4.30 this evening, there was an appointment with the gynec to know the progress of child. Eagerly I dress myself and get into the car. On the way to the hospital enjoying the pictorial beauty of the paddy fields, coconut glades, mango groves, and banana fields, a sudden sight between the paddy and banana fields distracted me.
“Stop the car”, I shouted.
“What happened, madam?” inquired the driver
“That, that sight has shredded my heart with a knife”, I replied and ran out.
A mother was hitting her mentally down child. Without considering my pregnant state I took an effort to reach between them and plea for that kid. “Are you a mother”? I screamed.
“Yes, yes I am a mother of five, a mother who stands for love, devotion, patience, milk of kindness and life. Can you add other meanings to the word mother?” she asked with a burst of emotions. Like an explosion of volcano she ruptured into tears. Suddenly I noticed her eyes burned like an ember with vengeance. I stood stunned.
“Do you know I am a mother of five disabled children”, she asked and continued. “How can a mother like me live with calmness on this earth”, she held and pushed me with grievance. I felt my ‘Little Rose’ being squashed by someone but I never allowed myself to be bending by emotions. I made an attempt to conquer it and harden my soul.
“My fate is only because of this polluted earth”… No ,No… because of this polluted mother”, she shouted again and again, chanting as if in a trance.
“What do you mean” I asked profusely.
“Have you ever noticed our lives between the paddy and banana fields? It is a wonderfull scenery for you. But we are the victims and breathing our last”. She clarified it with feeble eyes.
“I can’t understand”, I replied a little confused.
These farmers are using a lot of pesticides to repel the insects. As we are aware the amount of pesticides are beyond the recommended limit. They coat the fruits in this poison and drown our lives too.
“Look at my children, they won’t be able to support us in our aged time but they need our hold till their end. She moaned pathetically and continued….
“Why can’t we avoid pesticides and instead use biological options and insect trapping methods? Then it wouldn’t affect the lush scenery, the plump crops or our lives.
Instead of showing empathy nothing came to my mind in comforting her, I was lost for words. Unexpectedly my baby kicked my womb by saying,
“Oh Mother, I too eat those bananas”.
Was anything happening to my child? A frantic wave washed over me and I dashed into the car. “Please, take the car. Please, a little more faster man” I shouted to a baffled driver.
After a thorough a medical checkup, I returned home with the haunting memories of that victimized mother and her children pricking me as a darning needle.
“How can a motherly figure be calm in this state, human or even the planet”, these words echoed loudly and brought an enduring pain to my ears. For a deviation of thought, I switched on the television. Unfortunately it was this vividly depiction of the endosulfan victims. Flower vases flew, flung against the screen without rationality and I ran out of the room. Grandma noticed a change in my emotions and had no word to comfort me.
At night I reached the dining table for dinner watching grandma serve a plate of excess puffy white rice. I could only see the image of the mother eating that and delivering an innocent disabled baby rather than the plate in front of me. I chucked the poison infused rice through the air and ran out to my garden to get that much desired peace. Grandma was so sad seeing me like this and persuaded me to have at least a glass of water. After keeping it beside me, she went back to the kitchen.
My hungry baby kicked my womb for food, “Mama, I’m really hungry and thirsty. Please get me something”. I felt so sorry for my baby, but the image of water mixing with pesticides from the underground soil of the paddy fields flashed through my mind. I stared at the glass of water without batting an eye lid.
” My god! How will I feed my child in this polluted world”? Soil, water and even air, all are contaminated here. I wept in silence and continued.
“How can I manage my life on this polluted earth?”
“How can my child live on my mother planet?”
“Have we had anything chemical free from these verdant green fields”? My mind cluttered with questions.
I shuffled my memories finally resting on the news of Israel’s farming method which I had read in a popular newspaper. They protect their agricultural produces like bananas by wrapping them in large nets instead of spraying and coating the yields in pesticides.
“If we continue our pesticide war, the tiger will die for taking a man as its prey because the ecology is going into a grievous imbalance”, I smirked making a silent laugh. Looking out to the garden, my sight struck the faded aura of those roses in the moon’s silver beam. Grandma had already used some pesticides to avoid the decay of its leaves. It made me angry and I screamed.
“Get me a drink, mama”, my baby made a rebellious turn in my tummy. I threw the glass of water away from us scattering the glass on the ground and the water on my ‘Little Rose’.
“My god, this poison is going to kill my “Little Rose’, I shrieked loudly and ran towards the pretty little flower with its buds. But it had already bid adieu dropping its petals one by one.
“My baby”, I yelled. Suddenly on that painful site I noticed a tiny little sprout smiling on me from the diseased plant. The bud had never gone but the mother was not alive. I re- planted it, kissing the shoot with excitement, blessing it to thrive in this polluted world.
“A mother wishes to fade in the shadow of her daughter‘s sparkling beauty- physically and emotionally”.
This is an ending note, not only for Tina but for all the children to our mother earth, the diary ended there……
I closed mama’s loving log and went through her end note once again, admiring the magnificent conclusion. This, my mama’s words inspired me to turn the diary into a novel, to be a role model for all my fellow human beings to protect our nature.
“A mother wishes to fade in the shadow of her daughter’s sparkling beauty- physically and emotionally”, I repeated it many times in my mind. Slowly and steadily now I understand why I got such an award for revealing my mama’s philosophical thoughts, and her idyllic life. She likes to live behind my fame!!!, that haunting conscience I had for reveling my mom’s story as mine, now had changed with an unconditional respect towards her.
“Mother is an evergreen treasure for a child, with her words, her actions and her life…” Once again here I remember mama’s words, “Love your mother… then the nature loves you back”
Suite 16 is a collection of sixteen sci-fi/paranormal novellas and the book represents author Jay Dubya's 38th published work, presented in hardcover, in paperback and in Kindle and Nook e-book formats.
In the lap of mother earth
