Lakshmi’s evocative poem describes a mother, oxygen-bound yet cooking defiantly for family—unmatched devotion—on DifferentTruths.com.
Lighting two burners would make it faster, she thought,
although she felt a bit diffident about cooking
two dishes at a time in her condition.
The rice was washed and ready,
she chopped vegetables, turning cautiously
to reach for the basket of potatoes
I shouldn’t move this oxygen cylinder strapped to me,
not with the family fast asleep.
Who can help me adjust it?
How nice of them to go all out,
to get oxygen for her, she thought
when it went scarce, with people scrambling in queues.
Her family was happy to do it for her.
After all, there is nothing to match
a mother’s cooking.
*Poet’s Note: Based on a news report with a photo that went viral during the second phase of Covid–19 in 2018. It showed a woman cooking with an oxygen cylinder strapped to her.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
Dr Lakshmi Kannan, PhD, is a distinguished bilingual novelist, short story writer, poet, and translator. Her Guilt Trip and Other Stories (Niyogi Books, 2023) earned “Best Book of the Year 2023” in the India section of Literature, Critique and the Empire Today (UK). She was a Resident Writer at the International Writing Program, Iowa, USA; a Charles Wallace writer at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK; a British Council writer at Cambridge, UK; and a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
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