Last few hours to go this Friendship Day, and this not being
the conventional Mother’s Day, I preferably choose this day to put forward my
views and questions on an unconventional , unorthodox shape of motherhood. You are free to opinionate on my post. Because
you are either already mothers, or have hailed from a known mother.
Every time I stop by the Jubilee hills Checkpost traffic
signal, and gaze outside through the locked glasses of the Uber I am sitting
in, the ‘beggars’ aged 5 or 6 years, bang on the closed car windows, and then
leave the moment signals close, leaving tiny impressions of their hands on the
glass. Some have mothers, others don’t. And some are abandoned, unwanted daughters
and sons. We sympathize, and then leave.
Honestly, that’s how life goes on. In a fast moving age like
ours, when broken things are disposed off and not fixed, sympathies for a brown
eyed beggar child cannot be accommodated for more than a few seconds. I have no
authority to tell you, what ‘could’ be done to eradicate motherless-hood. And
here, poverty eradication is definitely not my topic of discussion.
But then, addressing all Mothers here, how do you define
motherhood?
Is motherhood restricted to carrying the living embryo in
your couch for 9 months, giving birth bearing the excruciating pain and then
bringing up the child under your shelter? No wonder, all these guarantee that
you have the shown the child, the light of the world.
But, people have abandoned and disowned their beautiful kids
even after having gone through these conventional norms. And lucky ones like us, who were born under
the right stars, survived with an identity. Would it be very nonconformist if I
said, the motherhood I would entail would be by providing identity to a
nameless child? Will I be called an ultra modern extremist or a feminist who is
trying to deny the biological conjunction between the two sexes before I give
myself the right to be called a mother? Isn’t motherhood about accommodating another
life into your own? Or is motherhood, only about adding a DNA matched heir to the
family? Is impregnating oneself, the only license to mother a child?
“Biology is the least
of what makes someone a mother.” Quoted Oprah Winfrey.
Giving birth comes
first, and then comes giving a life to it. Would you still judge me if I said,
DNA is not going to be the pre-requisite to call someone my own? Would the
society still roll eyes at me, if I said despite not having a physiological
incapability, I chose to pick my heir from the unwanted ones? Every child deserves
the love of a family, and that of a mother. Giving such children the needed
love, care, education and a parent, takes courage, and utmost desire to be the
guardian angel to someone.
