Maa Tujhe Salaam

It is said that God couldn’t be everywhere and therefore he created mothers.

The sacrifice that a mother makes cannot be explained in words. Her baby is her epicenter. She plays different roles for her baby. I tried to draw a sketch of the emotions I went through when I thought about ‘mother’. 

She is the creator (sun), the energy source (fire), she sacrifices (cross), bears all pain (fire, cross), works round the clock (wheel), gives unconditional love (pigeon) not expecting anything in return (half heart at the right hand corner of the sketch).

It is perhaps because of this greatness, God must have given her the blessing to be a creator. He bestowed upon her the power to give birth, to keep her baby in her womb for 9 months, to feed and nuture it. The whole process of baby being born and nurtured inside the womb is a miracle. Science has just been able to provide evidences, theories or supportings just to substantiate the process. When a woman becomes a mother, she begins a new life.

She is the Goddess Durga (epitomizing energy and protection), She is the Goddess Kali (epitomizing empowerment and destruction for renewal), she is the Goddess Sharada (epitomizing knowledge and wisdom). The role of the mother cannot be denied in shaping of an individual.

We take her for granted. We are so engrossed in our own world and routine life that we seldom acknowledge her presence. She makes food and we simply eat it without even commenting about it. Now just imagine that you have done some work in your office. You submit it to your boss and he doesn’t even acknowledge it. How would you feel. And we do this to our mom every day. No perks, No accolades, No appreciation. And she never cribs about it. She does this job all her life.

We work hard thinking that we would give her a better life someday, And that ‘someday’ keeps dragging itself. Sometime it is too late to give her that experience of ‘someday’. A verse in marathi comes to my mind,

Swami tinhi jagacha, aai vena bhikhari.

(Conqueror of three worlds is a pauper without a mother).

One of the nuances of growing up is that you stop emoting. There are times when we want to say some things, want to do some thing, but we refrain ourselves. Look at a baby. It will play for sometime and come and hug its mother, hold her hand, kiss her.

I don’t remember when was the last time I said ‘I love you’ to my mom or hugged her or held her hand.

The great Indian Poet, Philosopher Ravindranath Tagore has composed a beautiful poem for his mother whom he lost at a very young age.

I cannot remember my mother,

only sometime in the midst of my play

a tune seems to hover over my playthings,

the tune of some song that she used to hum while rocking my cradle.

I cannot remember my mother,

but when in the early autumn morning

the smell of the shiuli flowers floats in the air,

the scent of the morning service in the temple

comes to me as the scent of my mother.

I cannot remember my mother,

only when from my bedroom window

I send my eyes into the blue of the distant sky,

I feel that the stillness of my mother's gaze on my face

has spread all over the sky.

The second sunday of May is celebrated as the mother’s day. This year it is May 11, which is today.

We don’t need a special day to thank our mother. It should be every day, in every breath of air we take. But we need reminders and Mother’s Day is the reminder of all the things we have forgotten, of commitments we have not kept, of hugs we never gave, of acknowledgements we forgot, of hurts we caused, of moments we felt like holding her hand but never did, of ‘I love you mom’ we wanted to say but never said.

There are lots of theories of how this day was coined. The earliest history of the Mother's day celebration can be traced to the Greek's celebration of a day in honor of the maternal goddesses, Rhea, wife of Cronus and the mother of many deities of Greek mythology. Some date it to Romans who celebrated a spring festival called 'Hilaria' that was dedicated to Cybele, a mother goddess.

More recent history of the Mother's Day dates back to the 1600s in England when Mothering Sunday was celebrated on the fourth day of lent which included service in church to honor Virgin Mary. Children bought sweets and flowers in order to express love towards their own mothers. (Courtesy: Wikipedia)

When and how it was started may have different versions, but the emotions remain same and that is what is important. You can decide your own Mother’s Day.

Here’s wishing a happy mother’s day to my mother and all the mothers of the world. Respect.

(Above pic: My mom and me)