Earthen Pots of Thongjao

K. Radhakumar *

Rice cooked in earthen pots
Of Thongjao make,
Heating in slow tongues of flame
Of burning dry fire woods,
And left in the glowing cinder to bake!
It has a peculiar flavour
Oh yes, a flavour different in both taste and texture
From rice hastily cooked in pressure cookers
By fleet-footed modern mothers
Who are also office clerks.
They haven't got time, our modern mothers
To spend hours slaving over hot stoves.
Mothers of yore
Grew roots in dark and windowless kitchens
Preparing food for big joint families
(There was no family planning then)
And she was the last one to eat
And she ate it all, down to the last morsel.
She tucked her children in
And sang lullaby
Picking stars from the Milky Way.
She carried her little one
In a sling on her back
And lo, she also cradled another
In her arms.
Mothers of yore
God-fearing, the compassionate incarnate
Ye who had respect for the elders
And love for the innocent!
Where are you now?
Bless us with your philosophy
Developed through experience, I beseech you!
You can do it for
Here the living and the dead
Are in close proximity to each other
During the month of Langban.
Where are the spoons made of bamboos?
Brooms made of straw and reeds?
Pots and pans made of aluminium
And of different metals have driven out,
Have driven out
The Thongjao earthen pot
With a black wavy line worn around its neck
And black tears rolling down the fat belly.
Somewhere between light and shade
The conservative optimists are looking for
The children they have never given birth to
In the debris of the twin towers.
Terrorism has spread its ugly arms
And the iconoclasts are running towards it.
On the brink of consciousness and unconsciousness
I have seen two entities, side by side:
The offspring of Antigone the absolutist, and
The offspring of of Creon the relativist.