The women that are no more

 

Those were the buxom old ladies who still lumbered around quite seriously, still pulling the cart of domesticity, till the last decade of the century gone. They had seen much of the last century. They carried manly strength, a thick-skinned temperament and rough farming hands. They had much to give and almost limitless strength to bear. Further, they were broad shouldered and possessed huge breasts which hang down to reach their navels in the old age. These had breastfed many children, not limited to the ones born of their own wombs. In the extended big joint families there was a kind of communal breastfeeding for the dozens of children. There would be many lactating mothers at any point of time to fulfill the children’s needs. The children too took liberty to suckle as per their choice or availability of a feeder when the pangs of hunger struck.

These women were full of motherhood and offered their breasts to even the unfortunate ones in the neighborhood whose mother was either dead or was too sick to feed them. They would roll up their kurta and pop out the nipple. The hungry child would suckle and draw the nourishing drops of life. They also won’t bear the sight of the child crying of hunger in the buses and trains or at the stations. With a quick assertion of motherly guts, they would pop out the full-of-milk nipple, get the infant suckling at it, cover the area with their chunri while keeping their head still covered.

When they grew old, and their breasts hung down to their navels, they would tell the weaker young ladies of the modern age with their smaller breasts, ‘We can still squirt out more drops of milk from our old boobs than you the weak ones of the modern age!’

As the world of we humans gets more and more complex both within and without, the drops of milk are vanishing as the human physiognomy is changing under the onslaught of pollutants and modern lifestyle. A few decades down the line, maybe we will have all the babies produced in artificial wombs in the labs. The human body will hardly have the strength and capability to bear children naturally. But well that’s change. Isn’t it?