Hype over Mother’s Day? Well, mum’s the word : The Tribune India

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Hype over Mother’s Day? Well, mum’s the word

This past Sunday got to my nerves. Not because pesky relatives or friends had come calling, but because this whole manufactured euphoria around Mother’s Day was proving to be too overbearing.

Hype over Mother’s Day? Well, mum’s the word


Ruchika M Khanna

This past Sunday got to my nerves. Not because pesky relatives or friends had come calling, but because this whole manufactured euphoria around Mother’s Day was proving to be too overbearing.

Don’t get me wrong. 

I love my mother and grandmother immensely. Both have been instrumental in shaping my personality, helped me realise the balance between my independence and responsibilities, and perhaps are the only people to love me unconditionally and stand by me through thick and thin. I don’t have to proclaim my love for them on either Facebook or Instagram. But the social media hype over Mother’s Day was too much to handle.

I woke up to messages dedicated to one’s own mothers and all mothers, circulating on WhatsApp groups on my phone. A little later, the news feed on my Facebook was flooded with pics of all and sundry with their moms! Seriously...as if all other things had ceased to exist. Even the selfie queens of the city, for a change, left their pouts and posed with their mothers and in strangely straight faces (I haven’t seen many of the social butterflies getting clicked without that quintessential pout).

A friend, who I have known to ridicule her mother for the latter’s restricted knowledge of English and her small town life, another friend who has been threatening to take his mother to court over her decision to divide the property between all her children, and yet another one who never misses a social do—- even when his mother was battling with cancer or dealing with the death of her husband—- thought it was perfectly acceptable social media ‘etiquette’ to post their pics with their mothers, proclaiming how much they loved them (sic)!

The only happy thing about Mother’s Day was my beaming toothless maid, who came for work on cloud nine! Her 17-year-old son had wished her Happy Mother’s Day and even packed her breakfast. A single mother, she has risen from seeking alms to doing odd jobs and is one of the most self-reliant women- she certainly deserved acknowledgement from her son, and got it!

Baby jaan, whose recent entry in high school and the resultant workload has sucked  the relaxation out of our Sundays, too, was taken in by the relentless advertising on Mother’s Day and her mother’s FB feed. 

After dissuading her against uploading any of our pics, commemorating the ‘Big Day’ and explaining that each day for her was Mother’s Day just as it was for me, when I spoke to my mother and grandmother daily and caught up with their daily routines. Baby jaan was finally convinced that mother and daughter would go for a quiet coffee night, after the dust settled on Mother’s Day celebrations! But alas, even 9.30 pm at night saw these new-found proponents of motherhood celebrations not relenting. The cafe where we stepped in for a quiet coffee, was still flooded with people, buying cakes and getting Mother’s Day messages written on them.

We finally managed to have our cuppa along with a delightful scoop of sugar-free ice-cream, deliberating how the lives of Chandigarh residents were so different on their social network and within their real social circles, hoping that this most beautiful bond looked as beautiful in reality as was made out to be on the social networks!

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