AND HOW CAN I FORGET THOSE OTHER MOTHERS???

How in heaven's name did that some one think of the lofty idea of having a mothers day ? How can anyone who has had the good fortune of having a mother think that he or she could get away by observing a day for a mother who can never be for a day and is a mother forever ? How can all the other"days"be the same as a day commemorated as one day for a mother who is as powerful and loving and caring as God or even more ? A mother gives her child the gift of life, gives unquestionable and unlimited love, a mother who makes endless sacrifices to make her children happy ? How can a mother who cries with her children, laughs with them and grows old while they keep growing young and strong, a mother whose only dream is to see her children happy  and who lives all her life with this one ambition and even dies with its , have only one "day "on which her busy as busy can be children pour out their words(I wish all of them had their hearts in place when they were using their words)to show how much they care for their mothers  ?....

I too used this day to remember my mother who had left me so many years ago, but I know and I can sure that my mother has been living with me during every moment of my life during all these years and I don't have to wait for another Mothers Day to remember my mother.....

I however cannot  lose this opportunity to remember some other unfortunate mothers who their children used and flung them out like old rags  and how I wish there was some just God who would punish those children who had the devil with them when they ill-treated their precious mothers who were of use to them till they were young and of utility value and then were thrown out into homes for the aged or worse still thrown into the streets to beg and face the storms when they don't even have the strength to cry.....

I used to see this scene at the foot bridge of the Andheri station every day....A young man used to bring a very old woman who he carried on his shoulders at nine thirty in the morning when there were thousands of people on the bridge. He placed her in the middle of the crowd with a plate before her, gave her a stick to hold in her shaking hands and left her while she looked back at him like only a betrayed, humiliated and hurt mother could, but I didn't know that they were mother and son till then.....

The man came back at one thirty in the afternoon, gave her two dry chapaatis and some dry chutney and collected all the coins that people had thrown into the plate and around her and went back without even saying a word to her. He came back again only at nine in the night, took all the care to collect the coins and then carried her on his shoulder again and left. It was like the old woman finishing her "duty "for the day....

I kept looking at this unusual scene very day till I decided to find out the truth. The young man was jobless and a drunkard. Is only source of livelihood was making this old woman beg. I had to wait for him to finish his "duty ".One night I asked him to go with me to the Robert's Country Bar and he was only too glad. It was only after he had consumed a quarter of a bottle of country liquor that I asked him how the old woman was related to him. He had one large swig at  his bottle and said, "woh saali meri maa hai, mere pass koi paise nahi hai  woh kamaati hai bheek mangkar aur main khaata hoon .Kya kare,saahab duniya bahut kharab ho gayee hein ?".I couldn't sleep that night,but the next morning the man was back on his "duty "with his old mother .And the only question that tormented me then and still does is ,how could that son treat his own old mother so cruelly and inhumanly ?

I had neighbours who were Christians, like I was for the most part of my life .It was a big family consisting of a father, a mother and their five children ,with two  old women who were the mothers of the husband and wife.  The family had fallen on bad days.one day, one of the old woman had vanished and within a week the other old woman had also gone away, God knows where .Some weeks later some neighbours found the  two old women begging on two different streets in Bandra and after a few more days ,they were not seen any where and on making inquiries, it was found that they had died and their bodies were taken away by a Municipal hearse.

Do you find any difficulty in believing this story ?

If you have, I am sorry, you have not seen life.....

Danny was a make up -man in  films and lived with his old mother and three sisters in Amboli, outside the famous Filmalaya Studios and near the six- hundred-year -old Church.Danny had his eyes and his heart on his sick mother's property in Goa and wanted to lay his hands on it some how. In his mad obsession to "hadap"the property, he approached one of the local dons who gave him advice on how to go about his "mission mother"He was told to sit with his mother when she was about to breathe her last few breaths and when he knew that she was about to die ,ask all the others, especially his  sisters to go out of the room on some excuse and then get his mother's thumb impression on the documents of the property while his mothers body was still warm. The hungry for the property son did as he was told and the mother died and he was the sole heir to his mothers property. He cried like a wild child at her funeral, but where they the tears of a son or the worst kind of crocodiles tears ? I have not seen the son again, but I hope he is burning in the fires of hell and dancing with satan holding him in his arms....

Kalavati was a nurse working in a private hospital. She had four children and couldn't take care of them after her husband who  was a watchman working for the BEST had died .Her eleder son, David was a spoilt brat whose father used to hang upside down and whip the lower portions of his feet with a cain ,tie him up with ropes and throw him into a place which was infested with snakes and huge red ants .Kalavati was disgusted with her son and took him to a don called Leo who trained him to become a black marketeer selling cinema tickets and Kalavati used to go to the theatres to collect whatever money her son had made in the day .Her son went on to become David bhai, one of the most feared "bhais"in Bombay and even became a sharp- shooter who could kill without any qualms  .He ultimately became a man who was a terror, but also a young man with a heart who looked after orphanages, widows and homes for the aged. He was a very sweet man when it came to his family and all those who depended on him. But, he always had a deep grudge against his mother who he blamed for what he had become in life.David bhai was brutally killed by his rivals and his mother could not attend his funeral which was attended by thousands of people from all walks of life......

These are the other mothers who had a life in which they never knew what mothers day was and what love and affection was .I know of hundreds of such mothers whose sons and daughters have left their mothers outside homes for the aged and have never gone back to see them again till they died as broken hearted, lost and lonely mothers who have cried alone in the darkness of the night and have cursed their being the mothers of snakes and vipers who they have sometimes said were better than the sons and daughters they had carried in their wombs and given birth to after nine months of agony, pain and ecstacy.....

Those who still don't know what old parents go through when their children grow into wild animals (calling them wild animals is an insult to the wild animals)must and should see the play "King Lear "

Shakespeare wrote more than four hundred years ago or the many plays in the different languages based on it or the Hindi films like "Avtaar","Baaghbaan" and "Kalinga",the first and only film directed by the greatest actor in India , Dilip Kumar.

I hope the sons and daughters will show some change in them by the time they celebrate or observe mothers day again