Her Legacy

(Here is a little something I had written for Hitoisha, a Kolkata based NGO working for the upliftment of the urban working poor)

Through the haze of tedium she looked at the child.

Her eyelids seemed heavy with years of domesticity.

She sensed the feral spirit that ran wild.

The grubby smog hung on to the child’s serendipity.

She wondered who it will grow into when it matures

Will it toughen into a laborer or a delinquent beyond any cure?

Those eyes that are filled to the brim with twinkling promise

How deep will it sink in the world’s harsh abyss?

She remembered her sheltered happy childhood,

That grew into an oblivious and compliant adult life,

From father’s rules to husband’s codes to son’s swinging moods,

What more could she be but a daughter, a mother, a wife.

And then one day her nest was bare,

She had time all to herself, unlimited moments to spare,

For the first time she saw what she never saw before,

The child on the street its feet all sore.

At last she came to know her life’s worldly goal

To hold the child’s hand and wipe its tears

To establish its future, to play its mentor role

What more special could she give than give away her fears?

A vision of the child’s smile to chase, a dream to rear.