Mother stands for comfort, but who will comfort mother?

It's natural for mothers to worry about their children. But Hoshney Ara, 60, a widow originally from Anuraag village in Jhalakathi's Nalchity upazila, who survives on her late husband's Tk 6,000 monthly pension, has greater reason for concern about her sons than most. Her two sons Khairul Kabir Rono, 35 and Shafikul Kabir Sumon, 33, are mentally unwell; as the years have passed looking after them has grown increasingly difficult.

“Rono's illness began when he was in Class nine,” Hoshney says. “Sumon was alright up until he passed his Higher Secondary Certificate exam. If only one of my sons was well I could have no sorrow.”

Hoshney has spent a good deal of money on doctors and local healers. “I took Sumon to Pabna mental hospital once,” she continues. “After three months they sent him back.” Due to her sons' erratic behaviour Hoshney has no choice but to keep them locked inside the house. Rono has a habit of standing naked before the windows. Sumon likes to hide in another room.

“The neighbours have helped me a lot,” says Hoshney, whose relatives rarely visit. “They used to help me bathe them.” For the last three years that too has not been possible. “Because they are older, neither the neighbours nor I dare to enter the house, fearing assault.” She prepares two meals a day for her sons, passing the food through the windows.

Wife of a food officer, the late Abdur Rab Mia, Hoshney currently lives in the primary teachers' training institute area of Pirojpur town, where the family bought a home the year before her husband died from stroke. She also has a daughter, Dipa, who is married and lives in the town.

“Dipa is the only one who visits me regularly,” says Hoshney.

“We feel very sorry for Hoshney Ara Aunty,” says a neighbour, Piara Begum. “We try to help her, as we can.”

For Hoshney, it's not only the day to day management of her sorrowful household that has her worried. She is even more concerned about what will happen to her sons after she is gone. “How can I leave them?” she says, her voice choked with pain.

Now she has an additional cause for worry. “A neighbour is claiming possession of my house and I don't know what to do about it,” she says.