THE MOTHER ALONE KNOWS HERE 'THE BEST!'

This is the story of Sixties….

The day was hectic for the family of 5. The father was out for most of the day. The Mother was busy in arranging in the house for an impending visit of a few guests. The 2 elder sons were busy with their own College Works.

The youngest boy of the family had his Exam the next day and he was busy preparing for the same. The tension of coming up Exam practically robbed him of his hunger. As his Mother would not leave him, he took his lunch to his room saying that he would eat there but coolly put back the items to their original places in the kitchen when she was busy somewhere else.

The day ended thus and it was soon the dinner time. The Mother arranged the dinner but as the boy's lack of hunger continued, he asked her to leave his food on his table as he could eat later. The Mother insisted that he eat in time with others but the boy angrily told her to leave it and go.

As she was not interested in disturbing her son, she just kept the well arranged food on his table neatly covered and went to her bed. The boy was awake up to 12 O’Clock in the night, coolly put major portion of the food in dust bin eating a bit, kept the empty plate on his table and slept off. The Mother got up around 2 AM, checked whether her son ate the food, seeing the empty plate on the Table, she left it in the kitchen and further went to sleep.

The next day morning, the boy was leaving early to school in the Exam mood. By then his hunger was back. The mother kept his breakfast ready but as there was no time, he ate a bit of it and asked her to pack it to eat it at school. The Mother did that even though she was not happy and bid him bye saying best of luck in his Exam. 

The Exam tension continued, the boy had no time to eat the food given by his Mother and as his Exam would finish by 11, he thought of eating coolly the food in the box after that.

As the boy was writing his Exam, by 10 he started experiencing strange black-outs and a less-energy situation with a falling off feeling. He somehow finished his Exam by 11 and without disclosing his problem to any one, straight walked back home and the moment he reached home, he almost lost all his energy, just rested on the floor in the veranda closing his eyes in half sleep mode.

The Mother who was alone in the house, just came out and as soon as she saw her son in that condition, she ran inside, quickly mixed some rice with thin buttermilk, brought the same and simply made the boy drink it slowly saying that he would be alright. The instant intake of food immediately gave certain energy to the young boy and he looked better and improved. She made him rest immediately on his bed and further took care of him through additional food and water. The boy became perfectly alright by evening.

The father and the the 2 elder brothers returned home by evening and the Mother explained to them what all happened. They all felt for the boy miraculously getting out of a bad situation. At length, the elder one asked his Mom how she could so quickly make out his brother's condition.The Mother said, 

"I totally know every moment since your brother stopped eating properly. Yesterday, he missed his major lunch by eating only a bit of what I gave him. Again, he never ate his dinner and today morning skipped his breakfast and went to school. At school too he did not eat the food I gave him in his box. Thus he was without food for a fully day yesterday extended to today's morning........"

"But Ma.. All the while, you only gave him food and monitored his eating. And he carried his food to school too. How could you make out so precisely that his condition was due to lack of food and nothing else?" asked the eldest son at the back of an unexplained curiosity with him.

The Mother with tears rolling down from her eyes said.. 

"Yes!  I gave him food myself but today morning alone after he left for school, I could find out that he did not eat all that I gave him because the dustbin had the night food he had dumped into it. When I saw that, I instantly remembered noticing some excess food of every item of yesterday left out in the kitchen and that confirmed to me that he had not eaten the yesterday's lunch too. 

Seeing his Exam tension in the morning, I was sure that he would never eat the food he carried with him and he just did that only to please me at that moment. And I could never do anything more than that as by that time you too all left home. I was just praying to God that your brother should be alright at School. Left out thus to my own assessment and continuous anxiety from morning, when I suddenly saw him at the gate with a dull face almost in falling off condition, instantly one single thought alone struck my mind and nothing less of it.

'God!  My boy is starving.. Let me give him food immediately and take care of him!'"