It is Mother’s day again, that hot Sunday in the month of may when the malls would be cashing out on emotions, social media would be oozing out with love for mothers. While I am not against celebrating Mother’s day, I just want people to know that it is a celebration of motherhood and not just mothers. Motherhood is not restricted to women who has given you birth. Motherhood remains the most natural institution in women and some men too, fatherhood is rather an inventive institution. Men are not born fathers but women are born mothers, even in their young years of girlhood they develop a maternal feeling for their younger siblings.
Few of the most prominent motherly figures in religion and mythology are a proof that motherhood does not await the birth of a child in a woman’s life. Yashoda and Krishna never shared a bloodline. Mata Saheb Kaur, the mother of Khalsa was not the mother of Guru Gobind Singh’s children but that has never deprived her of a mother’s title. Mother Teresa was a mother to a million yet mother of none. Passing a child from your womb is not the only barometre of being a mother.
Only a woman is blessed with the unfathomable love that she can give to people who do not belong to her blood line. Not just to her own children but to those who are not born from her. So this mother’s day I am going to say silent thanks to all the women who have mothered me at some stage of my life, Most importantly the maids, the nannies, the domestic help, my mother could trust when leaving home the kids. The women who dreamt of all the love and sucess for me, knowing that they are watering a plant, whose fruits they won’t enjoy.
This mother’s day I want to tell all the women, who have faced birth of a stillborn or had a miscarriage and yet look at every infant with love and not envy, a mother is not born with child, a mother is always present inside us. I want to embrace all the people who have lost their mothers and have fathers taken over the role absolutely beautifully. I want to tell them that don’t let people make you feel that you are missing out on something. You have something even more beautiful.
I want to congratulate all the step mothers who have risen up from a society that has bred on Cinderella stories. You, ladies have a bigger heart than any woman who has had a C-section because you have cut your heart to fit children who will never be called yours. I want to salute all the inspiring women, who have adopted children without any prejudice for race or caste, you women, restore my faith in humanity.
This mother’s day I want to thank every woman who has nurtured a life at some stage. Yes, there can be no one like mother but the word mother is more of an emotion than a human being.
And I am going to celebrate this mother’s day with my dog. The cheeky monkey who is often spanked and seldom hugged but remains someone who wants to fit into my lap knowing that he is not a little pup anymore.