Daily Post Prompt : Eyes
In response to daily post’s one-word prompt : Eyes
When I was a child, I observed one fact about my Mom and Dad. Dad would leave early in the morning for work in his office, while my Mom would cook and take care of us.
My mom was very strict about our behaviour, she believed in the maxim,”Spare the rod spoil the child,” not literally of course. My mom worked hard for all of us, twelve kids and Dad and herself. Every so often she being a mortal liked some kind of entertainment, in her case was visiting friends for tea, lunch or dinner on week-ends.
One such day she packed four of us to accompany her to her friend’s house, my little cousin and his mom wanted to go, the hosts were relatives, so there was no harm in inviting them as well.
It was afternoon, mom’s friend who was also a relative, served us some tea and some of our famous Indian sweets. My cousin who was only four or five, jumped off his seat and started gobbling up the “Roshogolla,” (cheese balls in syrup).
I was disgusted with his behaviour, his mom thought it was funny, I felt embarrassed and hoped my mom would say something, she didn’t budge. She probably thought it’s not my kid who’s misbehaving.
Sitting and watching the cousin was my little brother, he was the same age as the cousin. The lady was surprised to see my brother, sitting quietly, she came close to him and said, ‘Eat,’ my brother didn’t move but looked at my mom.
Whenever we visited my mom’s friends, we always looked at mom’s ‘Eyes,’ her Eyes indicated what we should and shouldn’t do. The lady continued to offer the sweets to my brother, he stayed still, she asked my mother to tell him to eat, my mom used her eyes to tell him it was okay to eat the food in front of him.
When we had company, mom didn’t yell at us, if we happened to be rowdy, she’d communicate with us through her eyes.
The above is my true story, now I’ll use Tagore’s song to tell you how he uses the Eyes, in his song, it’s translated by me Ranu.
I saw the outside with the light of my eyes.
I will see my inside without light.
Now I look at you with the light of your eyes
You and I played in the play house.
Our play doll was broken by the fierce storm.
It was only a doll, and a pretend play
Let’s forget it, now let us play the game of life,
The strings of the Veena, the musical instrument broke
Our heart’s musical instrument is alive and well,
Let us use it to sing!
Sabethville 
Dear Ranu,
What a wonderful post this is, weaving together your mother’s communicative eyes with Tagore’s passages. Very nice!
All good wishes,
robert
Dear Robert,
I love reading your comments,you are so observant.
I’m glad I have a good friend like you, thank you. 🙂
Wonderful post and lovely song. You do the full justice to the song in translation Ranu dear.
Thank you so much Indira, you are awesome. 🙂
I like the song by Tagore. It’s sad and “fierce”–and affirming. Thank you for this!
I like your narrative, frankly, even more. Your mother’s eyes, the source of family obedience. Sounds pretty good for parenting. I wonder if you inherited that talent for yourself.
Again, Thank you!
Thank you I’m not sure I did. I recall once in the school where I was teaching one of the boys
was misbehaving, I just gave him a look, his immediate reaction was, ‘What, what did I do?’
I told him to think what did he do. His reply was okay I’ll be good. My other kids were
always on my side, I didn’t bribe them, I entertained them by reading, some funny books,they thought I was cool.
This little one did not want the whole class against him.
I loved the kids I taught, they knew that and besides I was the only teacher who was different, I wore my sari, they hadn’t seen it before.
You might think they’d prefer to have one of the other teachers, but they did not, which surprised me too. 🙂