My Mother ... the Whore.

I have been involved with various Social Organizations that focus on Rehabilitation of Commercial Sex workers (commonly called as wh**es) ... and what I found amidst them is that they are no different from you and me... in certain fundamental aspects...

Sure, their tragedies sometimes get sidelined by a society thriving on pseudo-morals.. but they are human nonetheless..

This poem is about a person whose born as a bastard.. yet appreciates his mother & her values.


Born in the brothels of Kamathipura ... 
You would easily mistake me for a swine .. 
I wouldn't blame you, good Sir, for that ... 
the credit would go to the dear mother of mine ... 

You jump into conclusions about my ancestry ... 
About the man that might have been my father ... 
Honestly I little cared for who he was .. 
the possibilities countless .. I painfully gather ... 

I could romanticise my mother's tragedy .. 
the barbaric girl-trading in this world .. 
But dis not the sob story of a common whore.. 
This is the tale of my dear mother . 

She never uttered about her dealings ... 
Painfully aware of an unbreachable wall.. 
Her money equally spent on my siblings ... 
all five of us 'bastards' to the core. 

She never knew how to read .. 
yet stayed with us through those unending nights .. 
And when we used to show her our reports ... 
d*mn !!! When delighted ..she was an awesome sight !! 

You would never call her an 'ideal' mother ... 
Her past clouding your views .. 
and yet she was always with us .. 
inconspicuous as the morning dew .. 

She stood behind in all our victories .. 
never coming to the fore .. 
She feared about our 'bright' futures.. 
so far untarnished by her chore .. 

And then one day , her health began to fail
the thing you surveyed, that same dreaded disease.
I shift between the hospital & the temple ,
my arms in supplication.. and soreness in my knees.

'I am a burden to you , oh blood of mine .
Your future being eclipsed by my past.
Death be the best of things for me , my son
now go forth beyond the shadow I cast.'

I return to this very place I was born,
I see my mother where the society sees wh**es'
Her love gives me all the strength that I need
just like your mother would have handled her chores.