MOTHERS ARE GREAT

This I wrote after the death of my mother. So, unfortunately she was not there but her younger sister my aunt known fondly as Vishalam Chitti read this and wrote an excellent letter to me. This was published in EVE'S TOUCH MAGAZINE IN 1996 UNDER ADAM'S VIEW in my former name as v.karthikeyan.

THE UNSUNG HEROINES OF WOMANHOOD

In TVS Nagar Padi, a boy named Satish Kumar (18 years of age) stepped on a live wire. On seeing this, his mother rushed to his rescue. Unfortunately, she too died along with him.

Majorie Holmes, an expert on woman, writes,

“Motherhood is an instinct that rouses protective passion. We are very much like animals, we woman with our children. We will sacrifice our own comfort and safety for them. We will shield and shelter them, fight like tigers, if need be, on their behalf”. Tille Olsen says “motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsive, responsible” Satish Kumar’s mother was one among the millions of such mothers.

There is something special about everything, but everything is special about one thing, and that is MOTHERHOOD. In terms of sentimental significance and emotional depth, it is a word unparalleled in any language. It carries with it a very personal feeling of love and affection and it carries in it a personification of the basics of human culture, i.e. the humane nature of caring and sharing. An excellent unqualified love of total intensity and intense totality, it conveys at the same time a universal emotion of protection and growth, both physical and mental. So it is only appropriate that Mother’s day is celebrated in the month of May, named after the Roman goddess of growth, MAIA, the mother of HERMES.

 Mother’s day was initiated in America in 1907 by MS. Anna Jarvis and was first commemorated in Philadelphia on 10th may.

There is a Yiddish proverb which runs, ‘God could not be everywhere so he made mothers’. It is true. Mother is someone very unique, not merely in terms of emotional and physical links but also in terms of indispensability. We can change, doubt, do away with or disown anything or anyone, but not our mother.

Even that great Adi Shankara renounced everything except his mother. The great saint Sri Ramana Maharishi accepted his mother’s culinary help in his cave. This eulogies on mothers, and euphoria about motherhood apart, there is something unique about the very word mother phonetically.

The syllable ‘Ma’ is suggestive of the burping of a suckling babe. After its raw cries and mute murmurs, the first sound a baby produces is ‘ma.’ That’s why I have found, during my polyglottal pilgrimage, the word indicating ‘mother’ in many languages either begins with the ‘M’ sound or has an emphatic and predominant ‘M’ sound. Mother[English], Mère [French],Madre[Spanish],Mutter[German], Mae[portugese],Mama[Swahili]Umame[Zulu],

Umm[Arabic],Imeh[Hebrew],Moeder[dutch],

Moder[Swedish]Man[hindi and Urdu],Mitir[greek],

Mam[welsh],Mor[Norwegian],Mat[Russian],Me[Vietnamese],Mu[Chinese],Amma[tamil],Ammai[Malayalam] and the only notable exception is Ha-ha in Japanese.

John Michelle, an expert in euphonics, goes on to suggest that the letter ‘M’ gets its very double arched shape from the mother’s eyebrows and breasts, the first pattern an infant experiences. The first sound it is likely to murmur or mutter is M, which seems a natural symbol of mammals and maternity. It we browse through the thesaurus of slang ,even there the colloquial words for mother start with M’.Mama, Mammy,Mam,Mater, Em,Moms,

Mootie,Motherkin,Mumsy,Mimsy,Mummy,Muzzy etc..

Kind motherly affection is devoid of any boiling ferment or partisan enthusiasm. It stands for bounteous nature. It is a symbol of protection, something natural and expressive, that is perhaps why we refer to nature as Mother Nature and earth as Mother Earth. The language that we naturally use from birth is termed ‘mother tongue’ and the most important protection of the most vital organ in the anatomy is termed’ hard mother’[duramater in Latin]i.e the outer membrane covering the spinal cord and brain, then we have ‘soft mother’[piamater Latin] is a thin vascular membrane closely investing the brain and spinal cord and proximal portions of the nerves.

We all owe a lot to our mother. Abraham Lincoln once said,"all that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother”. In fact, as an acronym, the word ‘mother’ can be expressed as, whoever we are ,each one of us Most Owe To HER.

In HINDUSIM, as early as Rig Veda, an earth mother ,Prithive Mater, is mentioned. The mother goddess is variously depicted and worshipped, bearing various names, as the wife of Lord Shiva: Uma [light], Parvathi[daughter of mountains], Annapurna [bestower of foods]Durga[inaccessible] Kali[black. The mother cult has been strong, in Tamilnadu and Bengal, where it gave its name to Calcutta [Kali-ghat, steps of Kali down to the Ganges]. In fact, the image of the mother Shakthi is more manifest in Tantrism. In terms of Samkya theory, Shiva is Purusha[soul]and shakthi is PRAKRITI [mother or energy]. It is the shakthi who creates, through GUNAs [goodness]Rajas[passion]and Tamas[darkness].Thus the world itself is a manifestation of the energy of the divine mother. The cult of Shakthi was so strong that Bankim Chandra Chaterjee interpreted the history of India in these stages: as Jagatohathri, riding a lion[India past];as dark Kali ,ignorant of herself, trampling her own god under her feet [India present];and as Durga, supported by the goddess of wisdom and wealth[India future]. There is a theory that the cult of Durga or Kali is a re-creation of Hittite goddess and,hence,she has remained the patron goddess of conquests and wars.

The First professional female poet in the US Lydia Howard Sigourney[1791-1865],while writing about the powers of the mother said ," we perceive mother to be first in point of precedence, in degree of power, in the faculty of teaching and in the department allotted. For in point of precedence, she is next to the creator; in power over her pupil, limitless and without competitor; in faculty of teaching, endowed with the prerogative of a transforming love, while the glorious department allotted is a newly created soul and its immortal destiny”.

The Hindu Slokas go a step further and goad us to give precedence to mother over everything else, as for instance we always say “Matha, Pitha, Guru, DAIVAM”. Even if we fail to worship her on the basis of the acknowledgement of the simple fact that we came into this world because of her, Even if we fail to give her respect she deserves for whatever she has done,[especially Indian mothers do a lot for their children, they become a new kind of women effacing their ego and individuality],we should remember what American writer kate chopin[1851-1904]says, "they were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels”.

We must at least realize that the A to Z of every Indian MOTHER is that she is basically an Affectionate,benevolent,caring,dedicated,encouraging,fondling,guarding,hospitable,intelligent,jovial,kind, loving, magnanimous, nurturing, omniprotective,

pampering, quenching, revitalizing, sharing, tender, unquestionable, virtuous woman x-raying into the need of her children and providing yeoman service. A zenithal being used.

As Majorie Holmes writes,”however tall and strong a child may become, or what heights he may attain, no child grows beyond the reach of his mother’s heart”.

On Mother’s Day, let us remind our mothers that however they are, wherever they are, alive or dead, they can never go away from our hearts and mind. The greatest gift that we can and should give to our mothers on Mother’s Day is to make a resolution to elevate ourselves not merely as great Personalities but as good persons, not as skillful social machines but perfect human beings.

Mothers do not have a trade union .On the contrary uniting [every individual at home] is their trade. So they never go on strike, they stick to their work like an automation. But unfortunately for all the excellent identity and enormous activity that motherhood has, it never gets the stardom or elevated social status it deserves. So let us use this occasion [Mother’s Day] to give them the rest and respect and reciprocate, at least in part and to the extent we can, all the love that our mothers have showered on us.

It is very unfortunate that most Magazines/periodicals which are meant to speak for the cause of women tend to improve the status of women as a cynosure of society, rather than project women as sure signs of improving the status of society. They tend to make a veiled suggestions, perhaps unwittingly, to treat women more as objects of admiration, caring more for their cosmetic embellishments, glossy and gorgeous garments, glittering jewels, or as objects of pity narrating their woes, marital problems, or recounting Mills and Boon types of romance, or narrating episodes to vindicate that women can do anything that men do or even better than them and project their victory in a competition of gender. These are probably inevitable commercial requirements. Unfortunately, what happens is that these things mask the other more excellent, extraordinary, aesthetic aspects of womanhood. In these periodicals, while women’s acknowledged competitive achievements are paraded and publicized, and certain cruel harsh realities and problems of women in general are discussed with the possible remedial measures, they fail to propagate the more precious virtues of womanhood.

The unquestionably pleasant and positive aspect of womanhood is motherhood. If motherly love and influence are used emotionally and psychologically in a proper way, perhaps as a dedicated socio academic endeavor I think we may even succeed in the actual practice of non-violence, efface terrorism or at least minimize it, because basically most individuals do respect their mothers. This may sound a cynical dogma for social betterment, but let us not forget that the evolutionary process in the genesis of social dogmas has no end.