I sat frozen with sorrow and guilt. The piece of paper in my hands moved in my trembling hands. It was a torn dirty piece of paper with the letters blurred by tear stains.
I could not think, could not recollect the past right from the beginning. Yet memories crowded in.
That black day in school! What I feared came true. My mother, an ugly, one-eyed, miserable looking woman came to my school. She was the last person I wanted anyone to meet in this world. I was ashamed of her. My friends laughed at her and after she left I became the laughing stock. I was exposed before them- The son of an ugly woman living in utter poverty. She had come to pay my fee. That evening I burst out in anger. I told her how ashamed I was as her son. Couldn’t she put an end to this life? She did not utter a word.
I was not sorry. Very late that night I entered the kitchen to drink some water and there I saw her sitting alone and sobbing her heart out. Yet she was trying her best to suppress her sobs for fear of disturbing me. I realized how hurt she was. Yet, as I looked at the ugly face with tears streaming down from one eye, I hated her all the more.
The hatred in my mind made me determined to escape from the pathetic situation in which I was living. I did well in my studies, found a good job, got married and settled in life. even once did I think of my mother. Time passed and one day an ugly woman came to our door-step. My little daughter was horrified at her sight; so ugly she looked. My child cried out and I shouted at her. She apologized saying she came in by mistake taking it for another man’s house; she left and I felt relieved that the woman who was my mother did not recognize me.
Later in life I once visited my home village when I was on an official tour. I went to the place where my house stood and a neighbour came out and gave a piece of paper to me.
My mother had jotted down for me a few lines before she died. In it she said: “ When you were born you had only one eye and I did not want you to be a one-eyed boy. I compelled the doctors to take one of my eyes and transplant it on you. I am proud of you as you see the world through my eye . I am not angry with you. Still, I am fed up of this life. Never again shall I trouble you.”
She had entrusted this letter to the neighbour to be handed over to me.
The tears and the feeling of remorse in my heart cannot now undo the evil I have done. I cannot now give back to my mother what she gave me in abundance- Love that never sought anything, love that did not let me go.
Elizabeth Koshy
