As told by Montas Begum, 40 years old, a Rohingya women living in Jamtoli Refugee Camp
Recorded in Kutupalong refugee camp, Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh
There was once a family with a mother who was blind. She was very old and she couldn’t move from one place to another by herself because, in addition to being blind, her left side was paralyzed. Her life was very difficult but her son always took good care of her.
For some reason, the blind mother would always mumble, “boboh, boboh”, a phrase which was commonly used by Rohingya shepherds to keep their cows under control.
Being his mother, the son knew that it was his responsibility to always take care of her, even through difficult times. But the son’s spouse would always quarrel with him, because she did not want his blind mother to stay at their home any longer.
One night, the son’s spouse told him that if he didn’t take his mother away from home, she would leave him. The son was very upset and was stuck between two bad options.
Finally, he came to a terrible but unavoidable decision. He knew that he had to take his mother away from his home to a dense forest, which was the home of many tigers. After leaving his mother in the forest, the son returned home in haste, worrying and crying that he wouldn’t see his mother again.
From her spot in the forest, the mother kept mumbling her sound, “Boboh, boboh”, over and over again.
That night, a group of tigers found her. They thought that her sounds were very interesting. Hearing a rustling around her, the blind mother thought there were cows nearby. Fortunately, due to a great blessing, the tigers turned into cows and began licking her.
A few days later, the blind mother’s son told his wife that he wanted to go to the forest to harvest some wood in order to make a wooden chair. In reality, he wanted to visit to see what had happened to his mother and if she was dead or alive.
After crossing a long distance, the son arrived to the place where he had left his mother. To his
surprise and amazement, he found her surrounded by a group of cows, all licking her!
“My son, these are my cows,” the mother responded.
The son was so happy that he put his mother on his shoulders and walked back home, bringing with him the herd of cows. When the wife saw her husband walking toward their home, she was silent.
The son brought his mother to a relaxing resting place, where he made her very comfortable by giving her delicious fruits and snacks.
Now, the son’s wife got an idea. Filled with greed after seeing how many cows the son’s mother had brought back, the wife asked her husband to send her own mother to the forest. That evening, the blind mother’s son took his mother-in-law in to the dense forest, leaving her in the same place he had left his own mother only a few days before.
He then returned home. It wasn’t long before a tiger came and ate the wife’s mother.
In the morning, the wife sent her husband to look for her mother. While she waited, she prepared different kinds of fruits, which she planned to eat very happily when her mother returned with another herd of cows.
But as the son approached the spot where he had left his mother-in-law, he saw some dried blood and torn clothes scattered here and there. His mother-in-law was no more!
The son returned back home and explained to his wife what had happened in the forest. The wife began sobbing loudly, claiming that her husband had killed her mother. So the husband brought his wife into the dense forest and showed her what had actually happened. Faced with the blood and the torn clothing, the wife understood that she had made a terrible mistake. She returned home, feeling very sad for what she had done.
Rezuwan’s note: I recorded this story from a Rohingya woman who encourages her children to “Love all mothers, never differentiate between your mother or the others’ mothers”.