What Yashoda Saw in His Mouth

In the village of Gokul, in the soft hour after the morning milking, Yashoda was kneading dough.

Her hands were white with flour. The kitchen smelled of cumin and warm ghee. A small song drifted out of her lips — half a lullaby, half a hum.

In the courtyard outside, her little son was playing. He was perhaps three years old. His hair was a small tangle of black curls. His cheeks were soft and round. His name was Krishna.

His friends — Subala, Madhumangala, and the small girl Lalita — were squatting near a patch of damp earth. They were busy with something.

After a while, Lalita came running into the kitchen on small bare feet. Her eyes were wide.

"Maa! Maa Yashoda! Come quickly!"

Yashoda wiped her hands on her saree. "What is it, child?"

"Krishna — he — he is eating mud!"

Yashoda's spoon clattered onto the stone floor.

She hurried out into the bright courtyard.

There he was. Her little son. Sitting cross-legged in the dirt. His small fingers held a fat lump of dark earth. There was a smudge of brown around his lips. His cheek was full.

He looked up at her with the calmest, most innocent eyes in the world.

Yashoda's heart did a thousand things at once.

"Krishna!" she cried, kneeling down. "Mud is not food! Mud has insects! Bad boy! Bad, bad boy!"

Krishna's lower lip wobbled. "I did not eat mud, Maa."

"Subala — did he eat mud?"

Little Subala shifted from foot to foot. "He did, aunty. We saw."

"He did, aunty," whispered Lalita.

Krishna's eyes filled. "They are lying, Maa."

Yashoda almost laughed, almost cried. His mouth was visibly muddy, and he was looking up at her as if she were the one being unfair.

She took a deep breath. She crouched down so she was eye to eye with him.

"Krishna. My darling. Open your mouth. I want to see for myself."

He hesitated.

"Open."

Slowly, slowly, the small mouth opened.

Yashoda bent forward. The morning light shifted. She looked inside.

And the world stopped.

Inside her child's mouth, she did not see mud.

She did not see a tongue, or teeth, or the inside of a tiny throat.

She saw — sky. A great, soft, endless sky. Stars wheeled gently in it. Suns burned far away. Galaxies turned slowly like wheels of slow milk in a great churn.

She saw oceans — white waves, dark waters, whales the size of mountains turning lazily in deep blue. She saw forests, tigers walking, deer drinking at streams. She saw cities she had never visited, mothers in faraway houses, a small child laughing in a window.

She saw the river Yamuna flowing — and beside it, the very village of Gokul. The roof of her own house. Her own small kitchen. The lamp on her shelf.

And then, more impossibly, she saw — herself.

She saw a woman kneeling in a courtyard, in a flour-dusted saree, bending over a small boy with mud on his lips. The woman's mouth was open in wonder. The woman was Yashoda.

The woman inside the mouth of the child she was holding.

She made a small sound. Not a word. Just a soft startled breath.

Her hands began to tremble.

She felt something enormous move through her body, the way a great wave passes under a small boat. Her heart understood, for one trembling instant, that her child was not only her child. That something vast, older than all the seasons of the world, had folded itself small into this little body — into her courtyard, into her arms — for love. For the love of being held by her.

She felt her knees soften.

She wanted to fall to the ground. She wanted to bow her head until it touched the earth. She wanted to whisper, "Forgive me — I scolded you — I did not know — I did not know —"

And then —

Krishna laughed.

A small, bright, three-year-old laugh.

He closed his mouth. He blinked at her. His eyes were just eyes again. The universe was gone. He was once more her little son with mud on his cheek and the world's most innocent face.

He wriggled out of her hands, took two small steps, and stumbled into her chest, pressing his muddy face into her saree.

"Maa," he said, "I am hungry. Will you make roti?"

Yashoda sat back on her heels. She stared at the top of his head — his soft, sweet, ordinary little head.

Slowly, very slowly, she wrapped her arms around him.

She held him.

She did not know what she had seen. She did not understand. Perhaps she had imagined it. Perhaps the morning sun had played a trick. Perhaps a mother's heart, full of love, sees strange things sometimes.

But something deep inside her — deeper than thinking — had been changed.

She pressed her cheek into his hair. She closed her eyes.

"Yes, my darling," she whispered. "I will make roti. Come. Come inside."

She rose, lifted him onto her hip, and carried him into the kitchen.

She washed his face gently with a wet cloth. She set him down on a small mat near her feet. She rolled out a soft round of dough, cooked it slowly on the warm pan, tore off a corner, blew on it, and placed it in his mouth.

He chewed. He swallowed. He smiled.

She watched him eat as if the simple sight of her son chewing a piece of bread were the most precious thing in the universe. Perhaps it was.

Outside, the morning went on — cows lowed, the Yamuna rolled past calm and bright. In the small kitchen, a mother and a small boy sat together on the floor.

He looked up at her, his mouth full, his eyes round, and swallowed.

"Maa," he said simply, "I love you."

Yashoda smiled. Her eyes were wet.

"I love you too, my darling," she whispered. "I love you more than I can ever understand."

She tore him another piece. She did not ask any more about the mud.