A Vietnamese Poetry in English Translation Explicated - Mother

MOTHER
Explicated by Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay


Mum you were in brown during your life

For I could wear a lot of colourful dresses

When I grew up my dad died

Only you took care of us

Your hands were wrinkled

While your children were growing up

Now all of us have partners

Bit you are still alone

Your smile is always kind and gentle

So I think that I am still a little girl in front of you


You are like the deep earth

Which nourishes  flowers and rice for thousand years in silence

This is a poem where a child is the speaker and her mother is the addressee. The child recollects how her father died early and it was the mother who brought up the child. It was the mother who had shouldered all the responsibilities of bringing up her children on her own. She was in brown all along her life. She did not have the time and opportunity for pursuing her desires if any. On the other hand the child or the speaker of the poem could wear a lot of colourful dresses when her mother took care of her. That is  the mother saw to that her children could pursue their fancies under her guardianship. Now that the children are grown up they have found their life partners. The mother need not look after them any more. The child poet feels that the mother is now alone. The child also feels the pangs of separation from her mother. That is why she thinks that her mother is alone. But in her imagination she is still the little girl that she was in front of her mother. And her mother is always kind and gentle. The poem is clinched up with the two lines:

You are like the deep earth

Which nourishes flowers and rice for thousands of years, in silence.

Thus the poem lauds motherhood. The mother has been compared with the deep earth which nourishes flower and rice for thousands of years in silence. She never boasts of her self sacrifice. While flowers stand for the beautiful things in life rice stands for nourishment of the body. The mother also nourishes both body and mind  of a child.

 Let hedonism say what it can, here in this poem the role of a mother has been underlined as the finest manifestation of womanhood. The mother becomes great and noble through her silent sacrifice of the self for the joys and well-being of her child. The child sees the primordial mother in the figure of her own mother. Thus this is a poem holding out the mother cult. The poem is at the same time a hymn to the Earth. Both our mother and our mother earth are in brown and both of them must be looked after and revered. Indeed our dear earth is the only spacecraft in which we men and women can live and multiply. And even in our old age the mother is our solace . We imagine that we are still little children in front of our mother.