Love And Punishment

Love And Punishment

P K Routray

“Oh, Mother! I love you.

On your blood and breast I grew.

Many a sleepless night

starving with nothing to bite

you prayed by my bedside

nothing but my wellbeing was your pride.

Much pains and sufferings you endured for me

In you, my lord at His magnificent best I always see.

Over bent I am with my gratitude for you

for you my mother dear, anything I am ready to do.”

Thus murmured Paria a youth aged around thirty

a lone son of a widowed mother grown in poverty.

His mother has deadly diseases; the doctor has given up hope.

The cost of medication tormented him with no income he has to cope

as he nursed his mother from her bedside round the clock.

His dedication and service to his mother people started to talk.

The agonized wails of his mother touched Paria’s heart.

The love for his mother maddened him tearing his whole being apart.

“How to give peace to his ailing mother relieving her of pain”

day and night with many solutions, occupied his stressed brain.

Once with love and gratitude at his heart he bowed at his mother

and walked to the village cremation ground carrying her on his shoulder

and put in her wailing mouth the holy Ganges water

murmuring prayers in her ear and passionately kissed her.

Then in frenzy with an axe by one stroke, he silenced her.

Then ran, he with blood stains to the police station to surrender.

“ For my mother’s peace I have done it, I admit.

For her peace anything better I could not find it.”

He has relieved his mother from agony and pain

Ready he is to accept any punishment as a man insane.

Hey Society! You may hang Paria or give him the worst punishment

He feels for his love for his dear mother as his life’s final fulfillment.

(N. B - This is a true case. Paria is the main character)