By Ramesh K Dhiman : Mother’ Day (May 8) is a day of reckoning for all us when we recall the supreme sacrifices of a quintessential mother and rededicate ourselves to live up to her dreams. Even before a child descends on this earth in flesh and blood, she prays for her unborn child through sibilant whispers. Carrying him in her womb, she makes it to various places of worship to offer prayers before the concrete images of god to invoke His blessings for angel to be. She undergoes trials and tribulations during the nine months’ ordeal, negating her personal comforts and familial commitments. Her heart beats for her child, every now and then. She becomes one with the child, in a sense – she talks to him, feels his presence and even screams and giggles as he does.
The next level brings her even more closer to the new guest waiting in the wings. When he descends on this mother earth, she becomes the one-man army to protect him from all sorts of man-made and other calamities. She guards him against the chilly winter winds and scorching heat wave of the summers and so on. His every giggle and guffaw makes her go gaga and his incessant shrieks and inconsolable sobs make her melancholic. She comes out of her cozy confines for the sake of her new born shedding the warmth of her own comforts. When on a bone-rattling winter night, the child bed-wets, she assumes the garb of a caring nanny and changes his undergarment and shifts him to a dry place, while she sleeps in the profusely wet bedding, without any grouse or grumble. She even croons a lullaby to make him sleep with a daily dose of bed-time stories and other amusing anecdote that he narrates to cheer him to sleep.
When the child grows up and is all set to be in a school-going mode, she becomes a model teacher for him. She wakes up well before dawn and finishes off with all household chores. She cooks meals for him and packs the tiffin for the tot. While she helps him don the school dress, she never forgets applying a black ‘spot’ on his forehead to ward off the evil spirits. After seeing him off to school, she snappily wraps up the other household chores, but never loses sight of his arrival time from school. As she overhears a little cooing-wooing downstairs, she peeps out of the window, only to see her little one has returned with his heavy satchel slung over his shoulders. She hugs and caresses him umpteen times in a wild frenzy. She turns a perfect doctor whenever he catches cold or runs temperature. Even an out-of-season sneeze disturbs her to the hilt.
As we sail into our adolescent years after playing much hide-n-seek during the childhood days of yore, she grows even more indulgent and over-protective about her child. His ushering into a whole new world fraught challenges of sorts, she becomes a perfect guide for him, sounding several ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ – what to eat what not, what his sartorial choices should be and who he should befriend with and so on and so forth. After the college and university days are over, she prays for a suitable placement with hefty salary package for her child. And once, he gets settled down in life, her roving eyes get riveted on a docile and debonair damsel with sterling qualities of head and heart, to be his bride.
The story line and locale suddenly go for an abrupt change. A mother, who gave birth to a child and reared him in the best possible way and acted as his perfect guide and guarded him against all kinds of hardships during the childhood days and all through his growing years and so on, is now old and infirm. She stumbles as she walks with her shaky legs; falls again and again, with none around to offer a helping hand. She looks for someone who could comfort her and take care of her old age concerns. Her sunken eyes and pale haze on her face tells tales of the endless sufferings that she might have undergone. She looks up for illusive warmth of a relationship during her sunset years. She is jolted out of her reverie when she finds herself all alone amid a jumbled crowd. Let’s repay the supreme sacrifices of our mothers by taking a pledge on this day of reckoning! Happy Mother’s Day!