Mother's Heart Cried

Mother’s love for her kids is unconditional, selfless, boundless, strong & with no expectations what so ever. There must only be an exceptional mother who would not love her children.

As a kid I was nasty, mad & uncontrollable animal. Anyone would get goose bumps seeing my acts of brutality. This would pain her a lot. Then she would hold me back like her cub & pacify me by narrating this folklore to me.

There was a kid, who was very bad. Not only was he bad, he was raunchy, spoilt, arrogant, & ill behaved. He had got into bad habits of smoking, drinking, & gambling. He was small but big spoilt enough to be a sore on the face of the society. He would get into fights, learned rotten language, with nobody to control him, as his father had deserted them, even before his birth.

The poor lady would try to mend his ways, by locking him inside the home, praying to god that he give him sense, but all in vain. She was distressed, sad, but helpless. She would work from dawn to dusk so as to feed herself & her son. The lady was fed up with life, & would have ended her life, but for her son, she was treading this tough life. Life was tough & the miseries only multiplied by the consistent complaints of the people.

One day the kid was gambling with the goons of the locality. He was trading with marbles. He had put all his marbles at stake, & was losing them slowly. Soon he was completely broke, having lost all the marbles, but wanted to play more. He asked the goons to lend him some money, so that he could play further. They lend him some money to buy a dozen marbles. But on the pre condition that he offer something as collateral. He had nothing to offer, & couldn’t think of anything to put at stake. Sensing his dilemma, one of the goons told him that he can keep his Mother’s heart as collateral. He thought for a moment, & gave in to their demand.

They started the play, & he lost once again. The goons were making fun of him, laughing at him& aggravating his temper & distress. They told him to bring his mother’s heart to them before the fall of the dawn, failing which they would cut him into pieces, & offer his chopped body to stray dogs. Ashamed, angry & humiliated he left looking for his mother.

He was scared, panting & fearful of what would come of him, if his mother refused. His eyes were red, wanting to taste blood. He was fiery & had lost his nerve. On seeing the lad like this, the mother got scared, & asked what the matter was. He asked his mom to swear by him, that she will give him, whatever he asks for her. Mother did the ditto. He explained everything. On listening to this he said, mother I want your heart. The mom was taken aback. But she had sworn by him, to give him anything that he asks. She took the knife nearby, & stuck it in her chest, slowly boring a hole in her heart. She withered in pain, blood oozing out of her chest. She cried & smiled at the same time, seeing her son. She was not able to gasp her breath, turned pale, & was about to breath her last. She told her son “No matter what you do to me, I will always keep on living for you”. She instructed him, to pluck the heart from her chest. She was lifeless, choked, & numb.

The boy extended his hand, & slipped it in his mother’s chest & plucked the throbbing part out. Without even looking back at her mother lying in the blood pool he turned back & started running. He kept running faster, harder & harder. Suddenly he hit a stone on the road, & fell down, his face banging the ground with a thud. He was blinded for a moment, & the mother’s heart fell some distance from him. From it came a sound “Beta chot to nahin lagi” (Son did you get injured?). The heart start to rant in pain, even more than when it was being plucked from the body. The heart cried more now……………