Mummies and Mothers

A lump of pain was bandaged across her knee, shelved off the dead bones and un lively tissues, a (Egyptian) Mummy now, a Mother earlier. Cast in her own life and by situations that bind, she tries to put her best foot forward…sometimes in vain…but now in pain. Mummies long live their past and remain a silent mass weighing down (historians) people’s memories. And similar are the lives of so many more creators who have mothered us, preceded by a cycle of their very own of longsome history. Time remains eternal while we change our roles. Walking on earth as tropical daughters who bloom breezing through springs of childhood, growing further through wintry pangs of adolescence and youth and when older, crucified in summer fires in silence. We are reborn through hard labours of seasons of life and emerge alive from dark holes of pain unto a life of bright hopes and happiness. Clothed in love by mothers, while bandaged by the hands of time that reverses our roles, we remain mummified-in a box of others requirements, wants and desires, carrying within our chest a strength to create and love. History repeats itself and so do We.

oatmeal porridge

The kitchen seems a boiling pot of a world. Each of us womenfolk at (my) home is one with the heating cauldron on the stove. Burnt from head to toe misshaped and yet strong...each such time-tested vessel has a story to tell. They aren’t empty , though they wish they were...empty of worries and pain as they stand tall making agony mixed noises, only to heard half full by others. As my aunt stood facing her world, the stove at work, stirring thick, creamy, oat porridge, she enquired the bubbling hunger silencer-"Are you a potion of ideas?" "Your bubble head bobs and dips so often, I wish I knew what’s cooking with you?" The exhaust fan hummed lazily and tried blowing air to minimize the steam off the porridge and its maker. The maker, my aunt, was churning things from her past while her hand carried these preserved thoughts, kindling them and making them come alive. Moist faces and dewy days flowed from her past, layer upon layer. A cloud of anger moved across her face, as the fixed deposit of oat chunks in the depth of the vessel stuck not budging. Her conquests to win this losing battle gave way as the smoothened porridge gulped the bubbles, now simmered. The exhaust fan was tired (by now) puffing the excess steam away, as my aunt downed a cup of this victory potion. She was ready for other conquests.