Happy Mother's day

 Few years back around this time of the year when I spoke to my mother in India, I told her that the recent heavy rains had filled the creek behind my house. I saw a lot of frogs in my backyard and  occasionally few snakes to complete the food chain. As usual in a concerned voice she advised me to be careful and pray Lord Siva to keep the slithery beast away.

Teasing her mildly (as we often take this liberty with our mothers, though we rarely take the same with our fathers) I said - "Mummy, we all know Lord Siva has a stranglehold over Cobra, not sure if he has the same control over the snakes of America. Sanskrit SLOKAs (hymn) won't work here. Southern American accent filled prayers and sermons from the local Methodist church might help in keeping the snake away."

As usual she interrupted to chastise me, "Stop teasing and take my advise seriously. I will pray for you to Lord Siva to keep you safe from those PODA MUHA (Burnt Face) "Rattle SAAPA (snake)". The depth of her love to me is unfathomable.

Whenever I go home, she puts an Igloo shaped mound of rice on my lunch plate, telling - "TU PETA PURA KARI KHAUNU, JHADI GALUNI (you are not eating stomach full and losing weight), though there was hardly any visible sign of my weight loss. For her, this hemispherical shaped lump of rice on plate should be high, high enough for its tip to touch the legs of a cat trying to jump over it. That's her unit of measurement of quantity of food for keeping her son's stomach fulfilled.

When I insist on reducing the amount of rice, suggesting that intake of extra carbohydrate would add unwanted extra amount of flab to my waist, my mother vehemently disputes it - "TORA SWASTYA TIKE HEICHI, TATE MOTA KIE KAHUCHI ?" "You are little healthy, how dare someone calls you fat" ? Like all mothers from our generation, gaining weight by their son is a matter of pride. 

A chubby chap is known as "KHAIBA PIBA GHARA PILA" (in Odia) or KHANE PINE KA GHAR KA LADKA (in Hindi) - meaning a boy from a well to do family who liberally spends on food. (In India a SWYASTAWALA or healthy son earns accolades for the daughter-in-law for feeding the son well. On the other hand a slim husband can earn the wrath of the mother-in-law for not feeding her son enough).

She still advises me - "BARSA RE ODA HABUNI, THANDA DHARIBA" - Don't get drenched in the rain, lest you catch a cold. If she finds out that I have a fever, she advises me to eat Apples and LUNI BISCUIT (Saltine crackers, similar to the RITZ crackers, popularly consumed during fever during my childhood as it titillates the numbed taste buds) and eat PAUNRUTI (sliced bread) dipped in warm milk. She still treats me like a 10 year old. Though I am way past that and in the middle of middle age, her love is unwavering and eternal. No matter how far I am from her, her unadulterated love and concern for me never ever ebbs. I have complete faith on her devotion. Now that I have outsourced my well being to her I can roam freely in my backyard and get on with my life. 

Motherly instinct isn't just limited to humans. It extends to the animal world too. Not just cats, cows, tigers and lions - the snakes too are very protective of their little ones. Other day on Discovery Channel I was watching a female King Cobra hatching her eggs she just laid. She could sense intrusion from the anchor and the camera person. Protective and insecure the 15 feet long Queen Cobra raised her hood to a height of 5 feet, hissing furiously. The anchor was cautious - "We aren't carrying any anti-venom. Need to be very careful here. This protective mother is pissed off with us uninvited guests trying to get closer to her eggs she is succintly protecting. One bite from this angry mom Queen Cobra will inject a gargantuan amount of neurotoxin into the bloodstream, potent enough kill 20 of us in few minutes. We stand no chance". All mothers are same, protective and their children's well being being their topmost priority. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all.