satire: A Mother of Nine Elopes with Her Lover

 

What strange times we live in! Anything can happen, anywhere, anytime — things we couldn’t even imagine are unfolding right before our eyes. The impossible has become everyday happening. As they say, You haven’t seen nothing yet.! If there was ever an example to prove that love is a divine madness — wild, blind, and gloriously irrational — this is it. Love recognizes no barriers, no logic, no social construct. It simply happens. There’s an old quote: 

 

 “Few hearts are earmarked for love divine,

It isn’t a song could be played on every instrument.”

 

But just look around — nowadays, this tune is being played on every possible instrument, tuned or untuned! Love has gone global, universal, omnipresent — and yes, blind, like the goddess of justice herself. No distinctions, no boundaries, no age limits. Take, for instance, the lady in question — a mother of nine who fell in love. Well, if the heart decides to take a leap, what can one do? Or for that matter what nine poor kids could do?

 

Three of her nine children, they say, are already married. But let’s not get into what kind of example she’s setting for them. Everyone’s too busy setting examples of their own, for themselves anyway — we’re a world full of moral sculptors with clay feet. If people truly learned from others’ experiences, we’d all be living in paradise by now.

 

What this woman has proven — albeit unintentionally — is that love has no substitute. Some branches in her heart, though weighed down by nine pregnancies and years of domestic duty, were still green, still tender, still waiting for that one true spark to sprout all over again. And when it came, no chain was too strong, no wall too high. When the tides of passion rise, even the strongest dams burst — and all we mortals are left to do is what we do best: argue endlessly on television panels, over tea, or on WhatsApp groups.

 

Perhaps her husband was a dreadfully boring man, the kind who could make even the ticking of a clock yawn. Imagine her — nine children later, still waiting for something to make her heart beat faster. Maybe her marriage had turned into a mausoleum of routine, and she longed for a little air, a little madness. So, when the first opportunity fluttered by, she spread her wings and — poof! — she flew over the nest.

 

And really, whether she had nine kids or nineteen, married daughters or toddlers — all that is beside the point. When Cupid’s arrow strikes, there’s no vaccination, no escape. The lovers, smitten and stung, become each other’s balm.

 

Ah, but there’s the tragic twist — the part that sobers the laughter. The husband, heartbroken or humiliated, was later found dead. The children, weary witnesses, revealed that “Mom had run away with the same uncle four or five times earlier also — Dad would always bring her back.” This time, she left for good.

 

And so, the tale ends as it must — not in poetry, not in outrage, but in irony. Because love, that exalted emotion, that divine folly, continues to play out in the most unexpected places — in homes, headlines, and hearts that refuse to die.

 

As for the lady, she might well say with a sigh and a smirk:

 

I became Zandu Balm darling for you!