Happy Mothers' Day, not to all!

The all-embracing loving Maa

It is that time of the year when everybody publicly displays their undying love and gratitude for their mothers. No matter how strained their relationships with their mothers had been, at least now is the time to mend fences or to reignite the long put out flames of love and affection. Together with tweets and postings on social media, we are also inundated with many Tamil songs that glorify maternal love.

Ah, there are too many Indian movie songs at their disposal that put mothers high up on a pedestal, quite rightly so. It is unimaginable how much a mother sacrifices for her offspring, starting with the many discomforts of early pregnancy followed by the image alternating insults. The puerperal period is no walk in the park either. The sleepiness nights, the constant demand for attention and care of an ill child are just the beginning of many more of the unending saga of nurturing to follow.

The wrathful protective Maa

All these are fine and good, but in the course of my profession, I have frequently encountered mothers who have not conformed to the typical society mould of an ideal mother who nests, nurtures and cares till their chicks develop wings. Because of economic pressures or innumerable societal situations, they may have needed to leave their loved ones behind to be managed by someone else. Who are we to judge their inadequacies of parenting? We may be quick to pass judgement thinking that the child grows up in the bosom of everyone else but the mother? 

Then others decide to leave their bad mistakes behind to start all over on a new Slade. She does not want to know the remnants of her past life. 

Just to remind ourselves, many of the inmates of orphanages also have their mothers, in flesh and blood, walking somewhere on God's Earth. But, of course, every case is different and has a justifiable explanation for why the orphans grew up without the tactile embrace of their mothers. We simply look at them through our rose-tinted lenses and condemn them.

To put fuel on to the fire, let us not forget the wrongful interferences of the over-meddling of mothers in the matrimony of their children. Rather than cementing relationships, many have unwittingly chosen the path of destruction in dealing with marital frictions.

Still, Happy Mothers' Day, nevertheless. 

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