Happy Mothers Day

It must be hard being a mother. Movies have made it harder for mothers to be human. Look at the poster of the film Mother India that shows Nargis carrying a plough on her shoulder and you immediately know that motherhood is not something to be taken lightly. It is a cross to be borne bravely. For many years after that Nirupa Roy took up the responsibility of depicting what motherhood meant. She always lived her life in misery and never protested for long.In the film Deewar when the upright police inspector (played by Shashi Kapoor) is taunted by his sibling (played by Amitabh Bachchan, who has turned to crime to escape poverty, we are told that having a mother surpasses all material achievements. The line “Mere paas maa hai” resonated with the Taittiriya Upanishad that says "Matru devo bhava, Pitru devo bhava, Acharya devo bhava, Atithi devo bhava". We should worship our mother, father, teacher and guests as we worship God. The sequence places the mother as first among equals.Rang De Basanti has a grieving mother played by Waheeda Rehman, who watches her son’s remains being brought home wrapped in the tricolour while the song “Lukka chhupi bahut hui” plays in the background. The motherland and the mother are both in the same frame. The country is equated with the mother and rightly so.Aamir Khan’s next movie Taare Zameen Par has the song Maa that depicts the unconditional love of the mother. She resonates with the confusion and the fears of her dyslexic son. She feels helpless and does not know why her son is not able to do what his classmates can. She knows that the father’s angry response is unfair but cannot find an alternative approach. The fate of the mother is always to silently shed tears and pray for the well being of her children when matters go out of her control.The depiction of a mother is always that she is a superwoman, who will sacrifice her own happiness for her children, silently accept the taunts and rebukes when the children let her down. In the recent film English Vinglish, Sreedevi plays a quiet, sweet tempered housewife endures small slights from her well-educated husband and daughter everyday because of her inability to speak and understand English. The depiction of the mother has not changed.After all, it is always her fault when the children wobble. When the children treat her badly, she always hides her tears lest the neighbours think poorly of her children. The children may abandon her in times of her need, but she always forgives their ill treatment and selfishness. Religious texts and mythology have a similar image of the mother.She cannot feel angry or disappointed for long. She cannot make demands. She is always the silently suffering mother who will wipe her tears in private lest her hurt is known beyond the walls of the home. Remember Hema Malini in Baghban?When Bollywood’s favourite “cine-ma” Nirupa Roy died in oblivion, the media report said:“Earlier this year Nirupa Roy made a rare public appearance at the Filmfare Awards to receive her award for lifetime achievement -- little did we know that this would be the last time we would see her. The ultimate cine-ma passed away Wednesday night, unsung, almost lost to the film industry. In the last decade or so Nirupa Roy's screen output had dwindled to zero. Health problems plagued her. And Roy was shunned by most of the industry.”When a son comes home soaked in the rain, sneezing, having caught a cold, the father looks up from the newspaper and says, “Serves you right for not remembering to carry an umbrella. I told you this morning just as you were leaving home.” The mother runs in to get dry clothes for her son. Then rushes to the kitchen to make a hot meal and says, “Couldn’t God delay the rain a bit. My son had forgotten to carry an umbrella.”On Mothers’ Day, we will all share how superhuman mothers are. Instead the best gift we could give her would be to give her the same degree of humanness as we give to ourselves. Let us not compare her to God and take away her right to get disappointed and angry and frustrated at the shortcomings of her children. Let us not trap her in this unrealistic expectation of being ever forgiving. Maybe that is why we also treat our motherland India also with the same degree of callousness. After all, a mother should never expect her children to do anything in return for her generosity.If we really think that mothers are precious, it is how we treat her on the other 364 days that will matter.Happy Mothers’ Day.Join me on Twitter @abhijitbhaduri