Happy Budday Mommy!

Today’s my mum’s birthday. Old woman, that. Her body shows her age, has weathered two kids, multiple surgeries, and limitless radiation and chemo. But her face is a child’s, innocent and line-less. Her soul is clear and free. Her mind is still eager to soak in all the learning she can find. Nature would have been bang on target had I been made her mum instead!

There was a time when I was into poetry. But I used to write mostly about broken hearts – you know, how most poets begin to hone their skills. I had also noticed, I was a foul-weather poet – I never had poetry in me when I was happy. But the words would just tumble out when I was sad. Anyway, I wrote a poem for mum’s birthday. One of the few happy poems I wrote. And a happy poem, which satisfied my urges as a poet, somehow happy poems never seemed to justify the whole idea of it being a poem. I mean, woh shayari hi kya jismein kuchh dard na ho, kuchh sanjeedgi na ho…kavita who jo dil ko choo jaaye, aankhon mein aansoo bhar laaye…no angst, no torment, that’s no piece of poetry. But mum’s poem, was a happy-happy, skipping-along-singing-a-song kind of piece, I can’t imagine writing something sad for her, even when I saw her lying on a stretcher going in for her first surgery. She just gave you the impression of skipping-along even then!

Anyway, I wrote it one year, and she was touched. And she demanded that I write her a poem every year, whether there were any other gifts or not. I did her bidding for the next six years, if I remember correctly, but my reserves of poetry are dried up, and I can’t explain to her that I’m into prose these days. So today the tribute is up for the world to know what a special woman she is. My mother, my best friend, my kindred soul. Happy birthday, mum!