Motherhood : Poem - The Greatest of Joys - Still, Where Does It Get Lost Or Trapped, On Its Way From Doll-House To Home?
Vanita is an engineer-researcher-consultant-artist: a gifted singer-poetess; & writes in English-Hindi-Gujarati on her diverse experiences
To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.
— Maya Angelou
"We are born of love; Love is our mother."
- Rumi
Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.
- Meryl Streep
Mother is a verb. It's something you do. Not just who you are.
- Cheryl Lacey Donovan
Motherhood
I was a little more than
Five years old,
Had not started
Going to school, yet.
Everyday,
I listened to the radio,
Heard songs –
Most of them Hindi Film songs ….
And was very impressed
By Lata Mangeshkar ….
One day,
Curious,
I asked my father,
“Pappa, does Lata Mangeshkar’s daughter
Also sing so beautifully? ”
“Lata Mangeshkar
Does not have a daughter.”
“Why? ”
“She is not married.”
“So what? ” ….
I wondered! !
I had the impression that
At a certain age,
Every girl becomes a lady
And a mother,
Bearing and rearing children ….,
A phonomenon as natural
And as matter-of-fact as
Flowering of plants, trees ….
“You are a fool! ”,
My not-so-elder,
But wise brother quipped
And unknowingly spared
Pappa’s adult answerlessness.
Later on,
I grew up,
Accumulated age,
And I saw,
Birth-givers
Not becoming mothers
And Motherhood
Craving in childless arms ….
And I wonder,
Where did It get trapped?
Where? ………..?
Where is It struggling?
On its way from
Doll-house to home?
Vanita Thakkar (12.07.2009)
"Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved."
- Erich Fromm
"Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws."
- Barbara Kingsolver
A mother's love liberates.
- Maya Angelou
© 2020 Vanita Thakkar
