When I entered the teens
mother took me closer
and asked, ‘Tell me dear,
what is the most important body part of yours?’
Fond of music and tender words of father
I said, ‘Mama, it is my ear.’
‘Perhaps not, aren’t there many
who are deaf and have not heard anything ever.’
‘You sound good, let me again think it over.’
A year wheeled by...
On my next birthday asked she,
‘To my same old question
do you have any new answer?’
‘Between legs and hands
legs I shall prefer,
for we walk, run and play for pleasure.’
But son, smiled she, you are now clever,
yet once again I shall say no,
aren’t there many cripple and lame
who take life as it comes and do not ever bother.
‘You are right, mama, I shall take time
and give the right answer.
Once again, the earth went round the sun.
In December mother took fancy to ask,
‘You are in college now, should you now give
your considered opinion?’
‘Maa, you have outwitted me so far
and not anymore; is it the eye?’
She was cool and said, ‘No,
one-tenth of population cannot see.’
The same question she repeated year after year,
and every time my answer did not appeal to her.
In the month of March one year my father breathed his last,
we were shocked and devastated beyond any measure.
Taking great courage and leaning on my shoulder
she asked in a whisper,
‘At this moment of sorrow say son what is your answer?’
Holding her grieving heard I cried, ‘The shoulder.’
Unable to control her tears she took me on her shoulder.
All the body parts serve us, she faintly said,
except the shoulder that serves and takes the burden
off another in distress, a grieving soul!
To help another is it not our sacred goal?!
(Based on an internet forward)
