Blasphemous Lines for Mother 
 

R. K. Narayan is dead.

Tonight he sits pensive

in his bamboo chair

talking of a “very rare soul”. 

Suddenly I’m seized by a desire

to vivisect my own “very rare soul”

from end to end. 

Let me begin by saying my mother is more

“plain-dealing”, more “truth-telling” than Narayan’s.

My mother is retired, toothless, diabetic and bedevilled

by headaches and a blinding cataract. In short,

she is a cantankerous old woman. 

I remember the time when she was a cantankerous

young woman. When she took an afternoon nap,

she was tigerish: “You sons of a vagina!” she

would snarl, “you won’t even let me rest for a moment,

sons of a fiend! Come here sons of a beast! If I

get you I’ll lame you! I’ll maim you! … Sons

of a louse! You feed on the flesh that breeds you!

Make a sound again when I sleep and I’ll thrash you

till you howl like a dog! You irresponsible nitwits!

how will I play the numbers if I don’t get a good

dream?1 How will I feed you, sons of a lowbred?” 

And this fiery salvo would come hurtling

with wooden stools, iron tongs and bronze

blowers, as we ran for our lives and she

gave chase with canes and firewood,

her hair flying loose, her eyes inflamed

and her tongue lashing with a mad rage.

And we being but children would never

learn anything except becoming experts

at dodging her unconventional weapons. 

I remember how, having no daughter, she would

make me wash her blood-stained rags. Refusal

was out of the question. So, always I would pick

them with sticks and pestle them in an old iron bucket

till the water cleared. But mind you, all this on the sly.

Seeing me not using my hands would be lethal.

Those days in Cherra we never knew what

a toilet was. We never had a septic tank

or a service latrine. We simply did our job

in our sacred groves. But sometimes

my mother would do her job in a trash can.

Then it would fall on me to ferry the cargo

to a sacred grove. Refusal was out

of the question. So, always I would sprinkle

ash upon it, top it with betel-nut peels

and things and do my best to avoid nosy

neighbours and playmates. Those who

have seen Kamal Hasan in Pushpak

will understand my stratagems. 

I could cite a thousand and one things

to demonstrate how cantankerously

rare my mother is. And I decline

to tell you anything good about her.

I’m not a Narayan and I decline

to tell you how she suffered when

my bibulous father was alive; or how

she suffered when he died; or how

she suffered rearing her two sons

and her dead sister’s toddlers

in the proper way. There’s only one

thing commendable I will admit about her:

if she had married again and not been

the cantankerous woman that she is,

I probably would not be standing

here reading this poem today. 

1Archery gambling. Some people would buy a number based on the interpretation of their dreams. 2 Community forests, prohibited through sanctification, found in almost every village in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya. 3 A popular South Indian silent movie starring Kamal Hasan as a kidnapper, who tries every morning to get rid of his prisoner’s excrement in ingenious ways. 
 
 

      Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih

27. 10. 2001