Love incarnate

 

Love incarnate

(Bada Bou)

Part 1

Prelude

P K Routray.

 

At these twilight days

my past often I gaze

stretching my memory lane

when I was child insane,

when my laughter was my ornament,

when my sound for tears was my armament

paving my way to many an ostentatious win

favoured blindly by my elderly kith and kin.

With many grandma- like figures around

on my poor mother they used to pound

if she used her cane to control and correct me.

She was instantly brought down to her knee.

Existed then the bondage of relationship

with names sweetened by my babbling lip

beyond mama, auntie, daddy and uncle

to bind many in my labyrinthic circle.

enjoying their laps, arms and shoulders

with the warmth of love that a child plunders.

 

 

part 2

Her Story

 

 

Bou, we call our mam and the mother

with varying languages, the calls differ.

Bada Bou I call to my aunt elder

the spouse of my father’s elder brother.

Bada Bou the call to me is still so sweet,

Mummy elder, Aunt anything cannot match it.

As I grew I grasped some knowledge on her.

Briefly here I pen it prior to the theme proper

She was the daughter of a government officer

acknowledged then with respect and fear

wedded to my uncle, the heir incumbent

to a zamindari power, crowning was imminent

With the dedication to art, drama, and music

at his tender age he showed there his magic

At the twenties, his succumbing to a lethal fever

widowing my Bada Bou then carrying my brother.

Her miseries then onward

getting worsened and awkward

by superstitions and many barriers.

Further on this my memory blurs.

After thirteen years of life awful

sending her son to a boarding school,

to serve the needy and downtrodden

she joined at a school at a far off destination

Never returned she succumbing to a fever.

The ghastly seen on the news I remember.

I do not have words and courage to pen.

The thought itself makes me an insane.

 

Hey Bada Bou! I remember you often

recollecting your affection and my fun,

through the memory borne for sixty-five years.

Thank you Lord! Lucky I am to have two mothers.

 

Part 3

My story

 

Now I interrupt my grown-up wisdom

as a child to me my Bada Bou was awesome.

Out of all relations as a child I cherished her

as to me, then she was a preferred mother

She never held my ears, never scolded me either

Her big rotating eyelid, caned hand I do not remember.

Played I, ate I as I liked with her support

till I attended the age to go out of her port.

Stayed I with her as long as I was awake

with her, I moved clinging to her neck.

Only in the morning, I see on my rise

with Bou not with Bada Bou daily to my surprise.

After the forced brush and bath not to my taste

blackening my eyelashes with irritating painful paste,

food not palatable to the tongue forced upon me,

dresses forced on me suffocating my nose, mouth and eye

I used to rush to Bada Bou for protection and respite

to reach there, hazy to me are my prayers and my gambit

To run to Bada Bou and enjoy her tales varied and funny

from her mouth and her betel chewing companions many

Still I vividly remember

with my wisdom contesting never

there Panchu Lenka’s confirmation

on the limit of the highest education

acquired by Lord Ganesh as Likhadi

In me that casted a spell vivid

that with some boon that anyhow I should get

and get pat from everybody and remain Bada Bou’s pet.

“Barnabodh” was difficult to remember

pages were boring to me without many a figure

Many things I hazily remember

but to this old son it gives immense pleasure..

I lost her when I was five or so

but in my memory daily her I bow.

Feel still I the warmth her lap

hardly mattered the age and the time gap

Her lap had many a position

both legs stretched to squatting combination

to my whim, comfort and joy

still the blissful comfort I enjoy.

For me her bent knees sway

I still cherish night and day.

Her son elder to me by eight years

never grumbled or never was in tears

fighting against me for his birthright

both of us Badabou used to chit.

Recall I her games of Sway and swing

I used to sit on her leg palm like a king

She used to sway and swing me with her bent knee

with the hilarious sensation, I used to giggle with glee.

On her leg sway, she used to sing a song

while on her leg palm I used to sit all along.

At times determined to sleep on the side

displacing her sleeping son, my brother aside.

In the song she used to give me both options

the choice was left to me being best among zillions

On one side of her lies a pond with filthy water

on the other side was a pond with golden flower

Must I take a bath in one and sleep in the other

always my brother used to sleep in the filthy water

Satisfied I was then being always the winner.

I remember enjoying palm tree ride

sleeping on paln of her feet pointing upside.

On her palm tree I felt the chill in the spine

brave I was to be there never even I did whine.

Bada Bou! the chill in my spine still thrills me

Now for you tears strum forth from my eye.

At new phonetics, she was a master

Influenced it, me to learn faster

so that her talk with my aunts I would know

I lost her before I knew her trick enforcing my vow.

Her novel phonetics and tricks in me now creep

her wonderful taste on me as to whether I was asleep

raising my hand I confirm to her quest rising on my pride

perhaps her many trick now o wonder as a child,

But she taught me to catch my brother

who used to cheat me sleeping faster

giving to rotate first the hand fan on a condition

whosoever rotates first will complete ten rotation

the follower would rotate triple the times of rotations

I used to take up first thinking that I am the wisest persons.

 

Epilogue

 

Hey Bada Bou! Readers may laugh at me

a crazy child in a man of seventy when they see

contemplating on your palm tree

swinging on your sway swing with glee

reflecting on your phonetics to cheat.

seventy years back the child, you could beat.

All these I meditate upon for my twilight days’ pleasure

instead of meditating on the joy for materialistic treasure.

“Both are ephemeral” Tell, the scripture man adores

But Lord incarnates in the love imbued in the feats of yours.

 

To express gratitude to a mother is beyond the Lord’s power

hence either He himself never has a mother

 or when to protect the creation He incarnated

never could He express it as no epics have depicted

But my gratitude for you is etched on my soul

birth after birth with its new robes, my gratitude will roll.

 

 

(N .B -Bou is my mother. Bada Bou is my father’s elder brother’s spouse.I lost her when I was around five years old. But I remember with gratitude her love for me. she died in 1953. Barna Bodha is the name of a book to start with. panchu lenka a betel companion.)