A Mother's Tale (standard:drama, 2140 words)
Author: parthacharya@indiatimes.com	Added: May 07 2002	Views/Reads: 3592/2446	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
It's a mother tale about raising a fatherless son all by herself and the sacrifices and the compromises she has to make in this struggle

A MOTHER'S TALE Janeshwar had always been a role model for me .He was my
immediate neighbor. Jane as we all called him lovingly, could easily 
inspire anybody. A brilliant scholar and a tremendous struggler, Jane 
was abandoned son of a drunkard father who had left him and his mother 
very early in life . In spite of grinding poverty and impoverished 
conditions Jane remained a topper in his class and the university. He 
could really slog. Life on it's part handsomely remunerated Jane for 
his effort. He set the highest score in chemistry in the entire 
university, and to add to his glory he was instantly awarded a job of 
chemical analyzer in a repudiated government laboratory. Everything 
seemed to be going his way. 

Jane had a life centered around few people ,to be very precise only
around his his mother. Life plays strange games .For a boy so well 
known as Jane, there was hardly anyone to share his glory. Jane to me 
sometimes also seemed a pack of contradictions. For a person so 
intelligent and enlightened Jane totally ignored his mother's role in 
his life. The acknowledgement to this ignorance was served by manner of 
his behavior towards his mother which by any sense was humiliating. He 
would scream at her, call her names and on  rare occasions even hit 
her. On being questioned his response was frank, women were weak and 
stupid and needed guidance by men , an attitude of a patriarchal 
society . Jane's  financial woes had been lessened by fate to certain 
extent. Though his father was long gone ,he and his mother rather 
mysteriously kept on receiving his salary from the local railway 
company for which he worked during his lifetime. Some said that the 
station master under whom Jane's father served had a soft corner for 
Jane and so did not remove his fathers name from the payroll. Jane 
however was quick to take credit for such windfall gain attributing it 
to his good luck. To Jane the job of bringing a life into this world 
was not a big deal ,even animal can do that he would contend. 

Jane's mother Trishna Devi was quite his contrast . She was tolerant ,
calm and never took any offence to Jane's behavior .Life had taught her 
the important lesson of compromise .Trishna's life was colorless for 
most of the times. But on the first of every month she would dress up 
in the best of her clothes and blossom like a night lily. Everybody 
attributed it to her lack luster life for the rest of the month, while 
on this day she went to the railway station to collect her husband's 
paycheck .For most of the times otherwise she would remain indoors. 
Things had been fine till now , but then one day Jane became a 
celebrity scholar ,talk of the town and unwontedly  his mother got 
dragged into the limelight. The camera bulbs flashed and she became a 
celebrity mom, though too utter dislike of Jane .Trishna seemed to like 
all this glory and attention for her son's thanklessness she felt at 
least someone had taken regard of her contribution in Jane's life . She 
would talk endlessly about the hardships she had to go through in 
bringing up her scholar son . The entire colony which till other day 
use to dismiss her story as ordinary struggle listened to her in rapt 
attention .Overnight she became the epitome of motherhood .Her mother 
wanted to be like her ,though only she knew what it meant to be living 
with a thankless son. 

Glory extracts it's own price and Trishna soon found out that. She found
herself in the bad books of those whose popularity she had overshadowed 
with her new celebrity status. One of them was Parvati. Her husband was 
a high profile union leader in the same railway company where Trishna 
husband once worked. Prior to Trishna rise to fame Parvati was the only 
focus of attention in the society. She loved the spotlight. Her high 
lifestyle and constant traveling gave her enough arsenal for gossiping 
around and flaunting around her status . Trishna meteoric rise to fame 
caused her discomfiture beyond any doubt. She grew so disgrunted that 
she finally confided her problem to her husband .He shrugged it off as 
something trivial and asked not to be bothered by it. He being a 
politician however could not refrain himself from making a slander. He 
informed his wife about a rumor circulating in the department for many 
years that the station master had been banging Trishna for many years 
in return of his favor of not removing Trishna husband's name from the 
payroll. Parvati knew how to use this rumor. Soon the whole society was 
abuzz with such rumors and Trishna virtuous image  evaporated as 
quickly as it had condensed. Trishna had always feared this day, she 
knew one day her secret would be out. But she had made this agreement 
out of compulsion and not out of lust. Dhuli babu ,the station master 
had been considerate with her though this did not prevent him from 
exploiting her situation.She was an abandoned woman with no money and 


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