Motherhood is 24/7
Picture a formal concert. The performers have dedicated their lives to their music and they want to bring out the best they can in their presentation. The audience is anxious in its anticipation… the programme begins. They are as good as they are expected to be. And as the notes of Saraswati Vandana played on the flute and the veena fill the auditorium, a child inches up to the stage. She is crying, but silently. Rubbing her eyes and ignoring the pleas of the lady minding her, she walks up to her mother, who is playing. Her hand reaches out to her mother, and the mother carries on playing the veena even as she comforts her daughter, who snuggles up to her. The presentation carries on without missing a beat.
Virginia Nicoli, who played the flute after this, her husband Iginio Giovanni Brunori on saxophone, accompanied by pakhawaj artiste Roman Das were performing at the Dhrupad Vaadan Concert in the memory of Mrs Kanta Saroop Krishen, a cofounder of The Indian National Theatre, Chandigarh, as well as the Blood Bank Society, Chandigarh.
Even as Virginia played the flute, she would steal a moment to gently reassure her daughter, who found comfort in the mother’s lap. The music was captivating, the multi-tasking brought in a humanising touch to a formal setting. It elevated the experience.
All too often, women have to work twice as hard to prove themselves in whatever sphere of work they choose for themselves, and of course there are those who don’t have the choice — women farm workers, labourers and others in the informal sector who work with infants on their hips or secured nearby even as they toil.
As we listened to this multi-layered jugalbandi of Italian artistes, one of them playing the Belgian-origin saxophone and the other the flutes,— bamboo and silver — the mind also went to how effortless the jugalbandi of work and motherhood looks, and how difficult it is to manage. Just when we thought the world was recognising it and trying to make it easy for working mothers came a rising tide of misogynism in various countries of the world, most recently in the “land of the free and home of the brave”.
We were paying tribute to a remarkable woman pioneer who made a difference to Chandigarh and present in the audience were women — judges, administrators, principals, teachers, socially-engaged people — who make the city of Chandigarh beautiful. Like Mrs Kanta Swarup Krishan, they had created and guided institutions that gave Chandigarh its soul.
As the concert progressed, the daughter decided to move to her father’s lap, and made herself cosy next to the saxophone. Ah! The wonderful world of a child! As one saw the father’s hand gently pat her hair, one was reminded, that not only motherhood, but it is also parenthood that is 24/7, and the best ones make it seem so effortless.
