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Guna’s poem explores the complex bond between a self-sacrificing mother and her child. highlighting themes of duty, sacrifice, and the weight of love, exclusively for Different Truths.
Sitting hunched at the hearth of useful knowledge she toasted her ashen eyes through the gaps of her fingers and very often said, You are one of my unique achievements, of my, for ten months and ten days By birth, you’ve got a beautiful earth, besides the vast sky So, you must be generous like the sun, and tolerant, like the earth. At my birth, I cried, Maybe I got the pain from my mother. Since then, I have had tears in my eyes. in happiness and sorrow of people One can’t help crying, whose only companion at birth was tears. That honeyed word ‘Maa’, was my first honeyed word. Since then I’ve blurted out ‘Maa’, Unawares, whenever I sit down or stand up My birth is my mother’s sacrifice. I must be made for sacrifice, I can’t be an ingrate. My happiness lies in my mother’s happiness. My sorrow lies in my mother’s sorrow, Never can I be happy. He is the lone custodian of happiness. whose main assets are: the sun and the earth.
(Original Assamese poem titled “Adipath”)
Translated by Nirendra Nath Thakuria from Assamese
Picture design by Anumita Roy
