Celebration of motherhood

Celebration of motherhood

“Mothers’ Day” is here again. There are so many such commemorative days throughout the year including Valentine’s Day, All Fools ’ Day, Environment day, AIDS day, Labour Day, Earth day, Teachers Day, and even Star Wars day. Second Sunday of May is celebrated as Mothers’ Day in many countries. Some of these days are purely commercially oriented; some others are meant to create awareness on respective themes.

But, I think there is no meaning or relevance in celebrating motherhood on a particular day.

I read somewhere “God cannot be everywhere; so he created mother”. Mothers are very special.

We spent the first nearly ten months of our life inside her womb. We begin our life as an integral part of the mother. We remain connected to her in flesh and blood until the umbilical cord is cut and we are forced to get physically separated and become independent individuals.

But we continue to live inside the protective wombs of our mothers emotionally. There is a constant presence of mother within us.

Ten years ago, when I met with the worst accident in my life at the split-second moment of impact, when my car hit a post I cried aloud “Amma”. I realized this only after the accident. I still believe that I was protected by my mother.

Researchers say that we cannot remember clearly the events that have taken place until our first 3 to 4 years of life. I don’t think it is always right. I still can remember my mother feeding me by telling stories when I was just two or three years old.

This scene is vivid in my memory. While making the small balls of rice she tells me the story of the big bad wolf that steals the food of children. She keeps the rice-ball and looks away. The cunning wolf in me slowly steals and swallows it. My mother looks back at the plate and says, “Oh the bad wolf has again stolen my child’s food”. This makes me laugh uncontrollably.

Every day I enjoyed this game. Sometimes my mother used to introduce some new twist in the story by catching the wolf red-handed while it was stealing the rice ball. “Aha! Now I have caught the bad wolf”. Then both of us would laugh.

More than this scene, what I can still feel, even at this moment, is the smell of the rice ball, when she was feeding me with her hand. I believe it had the smell of my mother.  The fragrance was so unique and soothing that I had never found anything similar to it.

Seven years ago, when my mother was in her deathbed, I was alone for some time, with her, inside the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital. My sisters and brothers were yet to arrive. Mother was lying with her eyes closed and with laboured breathing.

I called her “Amma”. I was not sure whether she could hear me. I knew she was sinking. I took her right palm in my hands and kissed. I could feel the same unmistakable smell of my mother. It was so emotionally overwhelming that I felt like a two year old kid yearning to be cuddled in the lap of my mother.

Why Mothers’ Day on a particular date? It defies logic or reason!