Mother

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

‘Mother give me the Sun’, says the dying young man to his mother in Ibsen’s play. Can a mother give the sun to her dying son as the final toy for his calm sleep! Yes, the mother alone can, for she brings out life out of her innards after carrying for languid months of joy, pride and fear in her womb. When the babe kicks inside she places her palm to feel the nascent sensation in ecstatic thrill. She grows heavy and looks beautiful, her best in fulfilment of womanhood. When a boy is born the family and friends, relatives and neighbours dance around the new mother  with her  treasure in her lap in riotous feasting. A girl child, particularly in India, makes motherhood a curse. Like Ganga in the Mahabharat sacrificing sons in the Ganges families cut the umbilical cord in rage and throw the bleeding new born in ditches. A Muslim mother of a girl child may get a triple Talaq for her ill fated motherhood. Mother is after all a woman, she can be used and thrown for she is a mere child bearing machine for the pleasures of patriarchy. In my early youth, I remember to have heard a young man yelling at his mother for having given inadequate breakfast( He was Gluttonous): Mother I can give you everything a woman needs except one thing; you carried me for 10 months in your womb, I can’t ... I haven’t forgotten how a highly educated ( but unemployed) young man of a good family can shriek to his mother words that are too banal to even hear.

Sociologists too do not have a good word for the mother. Eric Fromm writes: Growth means the freedom of the child from the protection of the mother. And who is mother; She is your father’s wife. In India we have the story of Parshuram who killed his mother to satisfy his father Jamadagni. We say good things about the mother only in novels or on public platforms to woo them to surrender to our wishes. Modern civilization with all its modernity and liberalism has not given an identity to mother. A child or a person is known by his father, the mother’s name is expendable. Although we say that the mother is the angel of the house, she holds in display a happy family but always remains as a shadowy presence. We glorify the mother as the nourisher of the mankind but never give any social prominence to a mother. Even Shakespeare has not made a mother venerable. Hamlet speaks daggers to Gertrude. Her freedom, her love, her individuality are overshadowed by the Shenanigans of the male world. God is always the father: Christ is the son of God, the mother remains unmentioned, often unacknowledged.

In the Indian epics no woman is given the pride of place as mother. Queen Satyabati, Kunti, Gandhari- all have been extolled as woman but not as mothers. Sita in the Ramayana, is the most abused and dishonoured as mother. The most worshipped Avatar in India, the most honourable king Rama doubts her personal honour. She enters the family of Rama only after going through a fire test as her chastity is in question. The same question about Sita’s chastity is raised after she gets pregnant and the honourable Ramachandra discards her, doubting her motherhood. Why? Why does woman never get her due recognition as mother? We accept, rather take for granted her role in the family but never respect a woman as mother. She gives birth to man, sustains mankind but she has no honour as mother. In the 20^th century, the respect as mother was accorded to only one person- Mother Teresa. She never was a mother in the biological sense, but her qualities, service was endowed with the honorific – Mother. Is this not hypocrisy. A real mother is never honoured yet the quality of motherhood is acknowledged. This is ironical, and shows that we hoist the image discarding the real.

The mother is one you go away from, seldom come back to. She is a sacrificial figure not only in India but everywhere. Most Indian women raise their children in poverty and makes utmost sacrifice to make their children face the world with dignity. But she has no place in the lives of their children once they marry and live separately. Those who keep their mothers with them treat them as unsalaried servants. When the daughter-in-law expects a child in some foreign country, the mother becomes important. Mothers go only to serve their daughters and daughters in law during the period of pregnancy. After childbirth mothers are the nurses, cooks and free servants. Once the new mother becomes fit to resume the normal duties of life, the mother is sent back. She merely waits for a phone call on Mother’s Day, a day fixed by civilization to remember the mother at least for a day in the year.

 A mother’s sacrifices cannot be recompensed or refurbished or compensated. Till her last breath a mother wishes all the best for her children. Her unseen presence hovers around the children with blessings and she pines for them all the time. Children today are definitely conscious about the mother but do not show the concern she deserves. Ye children! Remember you are what you are because of a woman’s sacrifices: she is your mother. Show your love and respect for that’s all she needs.