LAHORE - My two daughters were busy playing in the other room while I continued to watch a Hollywood flick. My wife was busy in her daily household chores. It was almost midnight when I had just started watching the movie when calls started pouring in on skype from relatives and friends abroad.
They were all for my wife. They were wishing her a Happy Mother’s Day. The children whom we had thought were playing in the other room came shouting Happy Mother’s Day with gifts for their mother – small greeting cards that they had made with stickers that I had got for them from abroad a month earlier.
It was heartening for me to see that the tradition of making handmade greeting cards had not died in our house. The craft was taught to me by my mother and to my wife by her mother and we had passed it on to our children, who used it to spring the moment. Last time they had made such cards was on Christmas. Usually on Easter children like to paint eggs.
Though great user of social media I have never been a great message sender. After my family went to sleep began my quest of browsing on twitter, facebook and blogs. The debates were about growing hot political temperature of the country due to the planned showdown by opposition parties and about the realpolitik issues. Most social media practitioners, however, were busy posting images of their mothers and their families. And then began my Hurculean task of finding an image of my mother that I could post on facebook. Unfortunately I could not find one as I believe most are with my elder sister. So I ended up posting image of my father instead. But I love you mom for making me what I am today. “Men are what mothers made them” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.
My mother passed away in 1994 and I was not even a bread earner then. I deeply regret that she could not meet her granddaughters nor see how much we love her. Mother’s Day is not a new phenamenon for me as in my earliest memory there used to be gift of flowers for all mothers on the second Sunday of May in the church. Mother’s Day is not a Christian tradition. It emanated from the USA in 1911. Activist, writer and social worker Anna Jarvis is the founder of Mother’s Day. Her mother died in 1905 and she resolved to fulfill her mother’s desire that all mothers must be honoured and thanked for their love and support. Her campaign was successful and by 1911 it was celebrated across the USA. Interestingly Anna Jarvis was never a mother but remained an activist all her life.
In Pakistan the celebration of Mother’s Day is a phenamenon not going back more than 15 years ago. Among the Christians of Pakistan it came in much earlier. The celebration is always very simple in churches. Mothers are given bouquets and sometimes a song is dedicated to their love and support.
Like in recent years this year too the Mother’s Day that now has in its celebration elements of commercialisation was celebrated across the country. Hotels and restaurants give special discounts on meals and give aways on this occasion. At Avari Hotel they had put up a big white board where children put in comments of love for their mothers. hildren were also given colours to make drawings to pay tributes to their mothers. The markets too were flooded with a variety of gifts while the florists also did a good business.