From Son to Mother

Veena Pandita Koul
Reference: The Final Frontier– – Dialogues between Mother and Son by Dr K L Chowdhury Long back in 1998, I ask my daughter who is in 7 th class whether she loves to be a girl child to which she confesses that she does. I immediately put another question that had she been born as a male child, a boy, what she would regret having missed. And after a big pause she answers, I quote, “boys can never become mothers. They can never think and feel like mothers do, which is very unfortunate.” This sends me thinking. I ponder over it. And find it absolutely correct. Later on some experiences of life add to this belief of mine and I become sure of the fact that men can never have a feel of thinking like those of mothers. How can they ever imagine the intricacies and delicacies of thinking pattern of mothers? After all can a man understand the enigmatic smile and joy which a would-be mother gets when she experiences the first kick of child in her womb? Or, for that matter, what a solace it is for a mother to listen to the first cry of her baby in spite of being in agony and pain. I believe it as a harsh reality that no man can understand the emotions of a mother in real sense.
But today the read of ‘The Final Frontier’ sends me thinking again. I feel the author Dr K L Chowdhary has undergone unique tribulations as I have put it in one of my poems:
Like being a
Mother-to- be
Dreamy, drowsy
In sweat and ache…..
To give birth to ‘the poem’
He has in-depth understanding of the feelings of his mother. He has understood the underneath meanings of her statements and has felt her silence too.
And thereby I stand corrected. What I understood to be the absolute fact has become a relative one, making me realize that all men may not unfortunately feel like their mothers do, but there are a few like Dr Chowdhury who do, for which he deserves our compliments. I feel humbled while conveying my heartiest congratulations to him for creating a wonderful piece of literature, ‘The Final Frontier’ though like Prof Arvind Gigoo I too have reservations about the title of the book.
The dialogues between mother and son have reached such great heights that it has lost the concept of boundary, say for instance, when the author expresses:
‘Your tiny figure on the bed
Where you lie curled up,
Like a foetus
Back to the primordial state’
I straightway feel that it is like ‘umbilical cord reversed– – from son to mother’. Or,
When the author shuns pretence and comes up with a bold expression like this:
‘You knew my nakedness
When I took birth
But I knew yours
Even before I was born’,
to me the meaning of mother becomes ‘my-other- self’.
The book is full of profound emotions. It is educative, serene, and compassionate yet speaking of scientific temperament of the author. It has a gushing flow of stream running in mountains when  the author is speaking to his mother, while as it has calm, mature and contained flow of a river flowing in planes when the author is narrating the expression of the mother, but both the times not losing the rhythm and maturity of poetry and peace. The poems are full of lessons of life which normally are attained of maturity by living a life to the full, like:
‘It is change
That lends meaning to life
And spice to our existence.’ Or
‘Life is a dress
We go on stitching
To hold it together’
Usage of phrases and poetic rhythm are matchless, like:
‘Mothering a mother is not an easy matter,’ Or
‘Those who serve mothers
Are dearer to Him than others’
To live and to die in exile has been depicted as a permanent pain as motherland can never be forgotten as it connects to roots, while the author narrates: ‘Kashmir will always live in us As long as breath is there’
In short, the poems are full of love woven in words, creating wonderful imagery, speaking loud of maturity and affection. Beyond any doubt, mother has been made universally immortal by the author when the poetry reaches its climax:
‘And yet
You are…..
Yes, you are, for me…
Beyond any definition’
Though the author himself expresses, ‘there is perfect time and day for passing away.’ And finally he makes all his readers to feel presence of mother in flowers, in fragrance when he writes, ‘come spring and you will bloom and envelope me like always, in your divine fragrance.’ Beautifully Dr.
Chowdhury makes mother omnipresent and immortal like that of Goddess.
(The author is Secretary JKBOSE)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com

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