MOTHER'S DAY: THE MOTHERHOOD DIARIES.

It's just another weekday at the SOS Children's Village in Malir, Karachi and Rubina Khan, one of the most senior 'mothers' in one of the houses here, is busy in the kitchen putting the final touches to lunch.

'Today's menu is daal chawal,' she announces.

'Every morning as they are off to school, we discuss with the children what they would like for lunch. When the majority voted for daal chawal this morning, I reminded them about the biryani they had just two days ago. It is also rice but they insisted that daal chawal is different from biryani and so daal chawal it is,' says Rubina as she tells me that she will recruit one or two of the older girls to prepare the raita and salad to serve with lunch as soon as the children return from school.

There are nine children, six girls and three boys of different ages, in Rubina's care at the SOS Village. All live in the same house, one of four in a mohalla or neighbourhood. In total, there are 16 houses, four in each corner making up the four mohallas. The houses are nice, airy and well-lit.

Today, as one of the little boys, Kashif, returns from school, Rubina tells him to open his school bag before her so that she can go through its contents. 'One of his friends at school gave him a kite and string that he brought home recently, hence the special treatment,' Rubina winks at me. The bag is clean and the boy is allowed to go, shower and change. After lunch, he is also the first to be told to bring out his homework copy by Rubina. That taken care of, she turns to the other children.

Some of the children are orphans, some come from broken homes. She is there for all of them and they know it well. Rubina herself came to the SOS Children's Village some 23 years ago.

Motherhood is more than simple bonds of blood and DNA. Sometimes, a mother's love and care comes wrapped in other garbs...

'I am originally from Bahawalpur. I was young, divorced within a year of my marriage. Looking for a change of scenery and environment, I came to Karachi to stay with my cousins for a short while only, but here one of them asked me to think about getting a job. He even had something in mind for me and brought me here. That was when I fell in love with the shiny, happy faces I encountered here. The very next day, I was hired. The rest is history. I never wanted to go back to Bahawalpur. My children needed me.

'As we nurture these children, brought to us by fate, they in turn also enrich our lives,' says Rubina, who has by...