When They Call Me “Ma”/Kamalika Bhattacharya

When They Call Me “Ma”

Kamalika Bhattacharya

A Mother’s Name Is My Pride

I was known by many names once—

daughter, dreamer, a girl with untamed skies in her eyes.

I walked with ambitions folded in notebooks,

and a future sketched in careful ink.

Then one day,

a softer name wrapped itself around me—

Mother.

Not given by the world,

but whispered first

by a tiny voice learning to speak life.

And suddenly,

my identity was no longer something I chased—

it was something that held my finger and walked beside me.

Motherhood did not shrink me.

It expanded me beyond my own edges.

I learned how love could stay awake all night,

how patience could hum lullabies at dawn,

how strength could hide inside gentle hands.

In your eyes, my child,

I do not see exhaustion,

I see admiration.

I do not see sacrifice,

I see meaning.

You do not know

that every time you call me “Ma,”

it sounds like an award

 I never applied for,

yet wear with quiet pride.

The world may measure success in titles and trophies,

but I measure mine

in the way you run into my arms

as if I am your safest place on earth.

Because I am.

Being your mother

has not erased who I was—

it has revealed who I truly am.

Today, on Mother’s Day,

I do not celebrate what I have done.

I celebrate what I have become.

A shelter.

A strength.

A story.

And most proudly—

Your Mother.

With patient love

I shout, I scream, I scold,

“I won’t speak to you,” I boldly told.

He stands in silence, soft and still,

Bearing the weight of my restless will.

He hears each word my anger throws,

Though how it hurts him, no one knows.

And yet, the ache within my heart

Outgrows the storm I let depart.

In time, my raging fire turns ice,

Regret arrives without advice.

I write instead what I once cried—

“Shout at me too, don’t stay aside.”

Still he listens, calm and wise,

With patient love in gentle eyes.

And pride then fills my humbled tone—

My dearest child, my precious son.

Still I Fear the Dark

He is twenty-two—

yet his voice turns heavier

when I step away.

He sends sweets without a reason,

guards my smile like a promise.

I ask, “What happened?”

though I already know.

“Go safely,” he says—

but his eyes whisper softly,

I still fear the dark, Mom.

He walks like a man in the world,

measured, composed, aware—

yet somewhere inside

a small boy follows my shadow.

He speaks of work, of plans, of future,

but pauses when I cross the room,

as if my presence is a quiet shelter

he does not name aloud.

Sometimes he brings me water

without asking if I am thirsty,

as though care is his secret language.

And when I say, “You’re grown now,”

he smiles—

but his fingers still search

for the edge of my sari in passing.

I ask nothing.

He says little.

Between us lives an old understanding—

unspoken, unwavering.

At night, when the house falls silent,

I know he sleeps easier

hearing the faint sound of my movement.

Because in the dark of his grown-up world,

where responsibilities crowd his days,

there remains one soft confession

he never quite says—

I still fear the dark, Mom.

🍂