Oh, yes, even if you have hated poetry as if it is poison itself, for sure you would have studied the figure of speech called 'simile'. Yes, it consists of a comparison between two dissimilar things, and the similitude is openly stated using terms such as 'as (luminous) as'.
All this jazz and the title should clarify to you that I am comparing two dissimilar concepts, right? What are they? Well, they are the mother love and the moonshine. Why so? Well, there are so very many similarities between these two dissimilar items. Okay, let me explain a little.
Both are unbelievably beautiful. Both are quiet and peaceful. Both can calm down the most agitated. Both are so all-permeating that they can be taken for granted. Both are eternal and ever-alive. Like divinity itself, both are omni-present, omni-potent, and omni-scient. Just as the moonlight can illuminate gently but surely the darkest secret of the night, a mother does know her child's innermost heart.
Why all this comparison? Well, yesterday was the Kojagiri. This Ashwin full moon is the most luminous. So lovely it is that poets pen paeans to it. For me, however, it is also a reminder of the Hirkani tale.
Hirkani's story is an astounding story of a mother's love. A young milkmaid, as part of her daily duty, she climbs up to Raigad to deliver milk. She lingers back a second, given the glory of the fort, given the full moon day celebrations. Thus gets closed the main gate.
Her tiny baby is all alone in her hut at the foot of Raigad. She pleads every which way. The guards do not listen to her. She has no alternative now but to climb down the steep ridge that would directly take her to her child. It is the toughest steepest ridge of the fort. So sure is everyone that it just cannot be scaled that there is neither any bulwark nor any foot soldier.
She scales down the steep fall. One mo(ve)ment wrong, and certain death is for sure. Nothing deters her, neither the tough ridge nor the howls and roars of the wild animals nor the possibility of a cobra or a scorpion bite. With the full moon and the vision of her baby's eager lips as her only alibi, the determined mother manages to get back to her baby in no time.
What a grand tale of love, courage, determination, and sacrifice! Hidden in it is also the story of commitment to one's role, as a mother, as a milkmaid, while the soldiers at the gate are more in to following the letter rather than the spirit of the law.
In my opinion, hence, the Hirkani love is a metaphor, okay, a synonym for, in case you hate poetic discussions, genuine love for one's real self, one's genuine 'i'dentity which does not compromise with easy solutions. So Hirkani's tale is not merely a glorification of biological motherhood. Rather it is a saga of an all-encompassing passion that makes a milkmaid in to a legend.
Pratima@Look at the tale a little more carefully, and you would find many more such deep meanings in to it, as luminous as and as quiet as the midnight moon on the Kojagiri day.
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