The Symbolism Of Mother: An Ovation For Mother’s Day

The year 1961 was a turning point in my life, when as a young boy of six, buoyant with myriad visions of a promising morrow, I and my family of two equally young siblings and a caring mother; lost our doting father that was sudden and unannounced. In one mighty sweep of fate, as the heaven’s wrath swept us into a dreary corner, the Bard of Avon seemed to remind us, “What can be avoided whose end is purported by the mighty Gods?” Ensconced in my wary stance, I couldn’t throw caution to the wind to gather strength and reply back the Bard in his own words, “I have a bone to pick with Fate”! 

The abrupt absence of my father gravitated me towards my mother and I began to visualise her differently in a multitude of roles that I had hitherto not gathered. As times rolled on, like Neil Gaiman, in his book, Good Omens says, “The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do”; I grew up under the shadow of a Mother, who became synonymous with love, sacrifice, share, care, small wants, a large heart and a symbol of grace under trying times. She became a persona, who had the uncanny ability to make even strangers become a part of her own family: a beautiful being clad in an immaculate white saree, a wholesome being larger than life. That was the definition of a mother to me.

International Mother’s Day 2020: 

Mother’s Day, celebrated on the second Sunday of May every year, is a celebration of the contribution of the mother to her family and her selfless role in the growth and well-being of her children. 

It is believed that the modern Mother’s Day celebration first began in the US, when a woman by the name of Anna Jarvis, who in 1908 in deference to her pious and philanthropist mother’s desires, took up the initiative and held a memorial, at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in West Virginia in the presence of a small gathering and publicised it as ‘The Mother’s Day’, in honour of her late mother. The sobriquet stayed and has since been followed throughout the world. 

Let me step out of the normative implications of the Mother’s Day as it is, and has been much eulogized at, to an expanded vision of the Mother in some wide variations concerning maternal figures. While mother and motherhood have remained as the foremost of the universal realities, the sense of maternal symbolism, in some form, has remained across cultures. Mother as a term has been applied to as diverse figures as the Stone Age Venuses and the Virgin Mary in the West, to the multifarious representation of the name to a pantheon of mother figures in the Indic culture. However, the symbolism attached to maternal motives needs a closer study and I will confine myself to our own Indic culture in my intended discourse.

Concept of the Ideal Mother

While ‘ideal’ is only an abstract idea, for it is individualistic in its interpretation; to gather perspectives, I threw the question on Quora, the online questionnaire platform, today morning and solicited answers. The response is overwhelming, especially from the mothers and the about-to-be ones, and I quote one of the early responses: 

“I wish I knew.

I’m a wholehearted mother: barely mediocre in some ways, quite excellent in others.

I often feel insufficient to the task. To nurture four, to make life-changing decisions, often not knowing which will prove to be the life-changing ones…

To know when to provide and when to limit, to know when to push, demand, discipline, and when to ignore, overlook, or laugh…

It requires wisdom beyond what I possess.

I’m far from ideal.”  

–  Joy Crotty, Mother of four

There could not be a more honest definition of mother and motherhood. Joy’s reply in its implied sense inches towards the ideal. I could not have asked for more, as I thanked her.

Mother and Motherhood in Indian Culture

Indian culture has long glorified the role of a woman as a Mother. She is deified as a Goddess, sanctified as Nature and Nation, eulogised as the provider of life, food, tenderness, and affection. This interwoven cultural fabric is so thick and durable that it has muffled the experience of Motherhood from the classical era to the modern day.

Portrayal of Mother in Indian Mythology

Our mythology depicts The Mother as a friend, supporter, guardian who plays all these roles to near perfection. Our Mythology in its implicit language expresses the power, beauty, heroism and majesty of a Mother’s love in the following examples:

Kaushalaya : Despite being a victim of her husband’s 2nd wife Kaikeyi, she raised her son Rama with high morals.

Sita: Without her husband’s support, she provided the best upbringing to her sons, Luv and Kush.

Yashoda: She nurtured the most sacred and applauded motherly behavior despite not being the real mother of Krishna.

Renuka:  She is remembered for her unmatchable sacrifice for the lives of her sons.

Parvati: It was her motherly love and affection that granted her the power to create a son out of a clay model.

Draupadi: She is known for the best upbringing she gave to all her five children.

Portrayal of Mother in Indian Literature and the Arts

The social construction of Indian motherhood has been influenced by antiquated texts, like the Ramayana and Mahabharata and the Sanskrit text of Manusmriti. Texts like these were perceived to be a source of law, and have been so indoctrinated in our consciousness that it will take serious work to undo their impact.

For the longest time, India was a land where all women were Mothers. Motherhood was the prime role and final destination for a woman. R.K. Narayan portrays this through his book The Dark Room (1938), with his protagonist Savitri, the epitome of sacrifice, endurance, and submission. Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar In A Sieve (1954), the character of Rukmini is the traditional figure of sustenance in an agrarian society. In Mulk Raj Anand’s The Old Woman And The Cow (1960), the protagonist Gauri is projected to be the cow: soft and docile, a meek and mute sufferer at the hands of her abusive husband and mother-in-law. 

There are many more authors down the ages like Sashi Deshpande, Jerry Pinto and Jhumpa Lahiri; who through their books and their protagonists have spoken about the vicissitudes of Mothers in our societies.

In fine Arts and the like, there could be no better example to hold the mirror of Mother and Motherhood than the inimitable painter Raja Ravi Verma (1848-1906), who has presented us a kaleidoscope of The Mother through his much admired paintings. His iconic “Lady with the Lamp’(presented at the top of this Article) invokes a passion within that reminds me of my own mother going down to place the evening lamp of Aarati at the entrance to our house: a picture of grace, beauty and simplicity. There are many others, including the much misunderstood but a giant in his own ways, MF Hussain, with his series Saraswati and Mother Theresa.

Portrayal of Mother in Indian Cinema

Who can ever forget the heart-stopping dialogue in the film Deewar (1975), between the two feuding brothers, acted by Amitav Bachhan and Sashi Kapoor: “Mere Paas Maa Hey”, the iconic reply to the question thrown by the elder brother, with a smack of pomposity:

Bollywood’s depiction of a Mother has been linear of sorts: whether with the very first Indian film, Raja Harishchandra (1913), with Taramati the mother, offering herself for the sacrifice in place of her son Rohitashva; or the first Odia talkie, Sita Bibaha (1936) based on Ramayana; with all of the plots being interwoven around the theme of the mother. However, the depiction of the mother has gone through a sea-change with the progressive portrayal of the mother with their easily identifiable heroines. They have been as varied as the Crying helpless Mother (Nirupa Roy), the Couragious Mother (Nargis Dutt in Mother India), The Tricky Mother/ Mother-in-law (Bindu, Lalita Pawar, Aruna Irani), The Friendly Mother (Reema Lagoo, Farida Jalal), The Breaking-Stereotype Mother (Preity Zinta in Film Kya Kehna), The Gen X Mother (Film Khubsoorat); ending with the latest incarnation of The Ultimate Mom (Sridevi in the Film Mom).

Portrayal of Mother in Indian Music

The Indian Classical Music is replete with examples of various forms of obeisance to The Mother: be it the traditional ragas, both in the Hindustani and the Carnataki traditions; like the raga Hamsadhwani for Goddess Saraswati, raga Bhupali for Mother Earth or the much researched therapautic ragas of Malkauns and Yaman rendered for the well-being of the expectant Mother. The tradition of Bhajans dedicated for the mystic Mother Durga, sung by the doyen Pandit Jasraj is a treat for the ears. Personally for me, the reverential and immersive voice and words of late Jagjit Singh, invoking the word ‘Maa’, dedicated to The Divine Mother, in his musical album of the same eponymous name ‘Maa’; which I listen ofen when in a pensive mood, is elevating. Let me share this exalted track from the album:

As I close my conversation with ‘The Mother’, taking a libertarian view beyond the International Mother’s Day, let me recall the immortal lines of John Keats from his poem Endymion, in a solemn salutation for all The Mothers, wherever they be:

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.” 

Long live mothers of the Earth.