BY Mushtaque B Barq
After a week, when all the three sons arrived to console their mother, things remained unchanged. Water level was almost the same, but most of the relief camps had wind up their activities and merged with registered relief committees. Accounts were settled but the tongues had already started to wag. Queries and criticism on one hand and tributes and admiration on the other hand were on for the volunteers. Communication was partially improved and people had stories to tell. Stories written on the agonized faces, stories from the far off places, stories hitherto unheard , stories without plots and indeed stories without scripts. The three sons too had stories to tell and excuses to move on.
The eldest claimed that their kids were writing the papers and their mother had to stay back with them. He was much worried for his own children rather than the children of his mother, whose family had scattered into bits.
“Mother I have to leave, kindly allow me to go”, he begged.
“I can understand, you can leave, I won’t stop you”, she replied.
And without wasting time, he was on to pack his luggage, leaving much of his here.
The second one had no choice but to drop her wife back because she was in a family way and was on toes to depart as soon as possible. He was anxious to know about the new comer without taking care of the one who had given him birth.
One night while sitting close to her mother, he dropped his head in her lap and softly opened his heart out. “Mother I cannot stop here let me go and they need me there.”
Reading his heart, she stroked his head and the consent was on her lips.
The third son had even more genuine reason to drop her wife and a kid for she had been recently operated upon and was on bed rest and that she had none to look after. He was keen to depart for the one who had given him the comfort without taking a note of the one who had sacrificed everything for the family.
The house of aunty at Bemina was partially damaged, but she had nothing to fallback upon, so it was thought that she would continue to live with her daughter. The sons opposed the ruling initially, but then one by one they started to realise the ground reality and made plans to depart.
Departure, the word is itself a punishment and no one can ever willingly approve it and yet the mother had to. She had witnessed departure and that too of the one she was relying on.
That night there was a meeting, wherein, it was decided that one of the sons had to come back and settle here with mother. The eldest one denied plainly for the reason to lose his business. “Money is next to God on earth”, he whispered and in a jiffy isolated himself like a stranger from an infectious ward.
Second one kept his options open that her wife must be consulted. The next day he announced that her wife had reservations in including her mother-in law in her family. It was harsh, yet he plainly put forth the verdict of her wife before the one who had given him birth.
The youngest of all hesitated and finally vomited what was churning in his intestines for few days that he needs time to convince the rest of the family. Families matter, I realised, but then a boat cannot be left in the river without a rudder to let the boat live at the mercy of currents. The fact of the matter is that every boat must have its own anchor. An anchorless boat has to bear the brutality of waves.
On the departure, the eldest son declared that he may carry his mother along provided she undertake an oath that she will never indulge with his family matters and that particularly not argue with her daughter-in-law.
There was a dead silence in the room. The wall clock was ticking amidst of groans of aunty. She stood up, kissed his forehead and sent him off with a smile. The wife of Basharat didn’t move at all and dragged her mother into the room. “Do you still look for them”, she asked.
“I am a mother, you must realise, but why should you, for your belly has not been punctured yet”, she sobbed.
Silence swallowed up everything in the room but someone in the corridor announced: Sangam Bridge has been washed off.
concluded….
Mushtaq B.Barq is a Columnist, Poet and Fiction Writer. He is the author of “Feeble prisoner, “ Wings of Love” and many translation works are credited to the author like “ Verses Of Wahab Khar” and “ Songs Of Sochkral”
