<B>Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

Rajnee Banee, mother of the deceased Anusha and little Ryan wants her son back. She wants to hold him and watch him grow, she tells the press. Good for her.

This column is an angry reaction to Rajnee?s story as she decided to tell it. What chagrins me, is that I believe the woman is sincere when she says she loves her son wholeheartedly and wants him back. Therein lies the tragedy.

I guess being a mother in Ms Banee?s mind is a pretty much straightforward thing. Get pregnant and give birth nine months later. Look at the child when he or she is peacefully sleeping and feel the love swelling your heart. Tell people you love them. Buy them sweets. Give them a cuddle. And hit them when they are misbehaving to teach them a few lessons. And then let a stranger hit them when you are tired. Let the stranger abuse your child; let him kill one of them. Let him beat the other one up so much he needs to be sent to hospital. Meanwhile keep telling yourself you love your kid to bits. I mean, that?s what mothers do, don?t they?

I guess that?s what some do. But that?s not my understanding of what being a mother is all about.

My personal opinion is that Rajnee Banee has failed both her children in the worse imaginable way possible. She has failed to offer them protection against a man who had no business ?correcting them?, against a man who had no business laying a single finger on them. Ryan?s mother tells us today of the torture the man she lived with subjected her children to. She tells it, innocently as if she were an innocent bystander in that whole sordid affair. Well, I?m sorry if this sounds simplistic but isn?t a mother supposed to protect her children? Against whatever life sends their way? Be it an incestuous father, a violent step father or just a vicious dog?

Isn?t that what mothers ? and fathers for that matter ? should be compelled to do? Maybe, just maybe if some parents took their role seriously, fewer children would suffer pointlessly, fewer children would be raped and fewer still been murdered? And fewer children would grow up to become unfit parents?

Why do people take that sacred right, that of parenthood, so lightly? Is it because conceiving is so easy? Is it because having sex has never been easier? Is it because they didn?t want children in the first place and they just happened to get pregnant? What is it?

Shame there can never be a law that allows the issuing of permits to conceive only to those found fit for parenthood. But there is definitely something we can do. It is to give the choice to those who are not ready to have a child not to have it. To let them abort so that there is less misery in this world. So that we don?t have to hear the haunting sound of a suffering child yelling.

So that those who are unfit to be mothers can make the choice of not being a mother at all.