Mother Love

 Have you read Brecht's play, "The Caucasian Chalk Circle"? Undoubtedly, as a student of literature, one likes the play for the Brechtian dramaturgy. One can explore in it very many aspects of Socialism and Marxism as well. Unmistakable are the contemporaneous echoes as well. Equally interesting, however, is the play for the definition of motherhood and mother love.

In the play, a dramatic version of Brecht's short story that anyways depends on an ancient Chinese tale/play, we have two representations of motherhood, Natella and Grusha. Natella is the biological mother, but she is sold on-n-out to her extra marital affair, her vanities, her giddy ambitions. For her, the child is a tool to wrest control, of the family property, of power, of the so-called societal acceptance. She is never concerned with the child's welfare or well-being. She can drop him like a hot potato the moment he is inconvenient to her desires and deals.

Grusha, on the contrary, as Brecht states most ironically, may not have conceived him in the so-called holy matrimony,etc etc. In fact, Brecht mocks all such conventional hypocrisies that typically idolise motherhood. Grusha has no such duplicitous insincerities in her very being. She takes care of the child, not her own, against all odds, against every difficulty. She sacrifices her comforts for his wellbeing.

In the Chalk Circle test hence, she lets go of him because she cannot bear to see him torn, to see him suffer between two forceful pulls. Thus is decided the real mother, not the natal mother, but the nurturing mother.

Indeed biology cannot be the destiny of motherhood either. Being a mother is a feel. Biological motherhood, born out of  sexual intercourse, is a physical process, a game of hormones and chromosomes, and can often be a mere 'chance'. If it were not so, there would not have been any abortions of foetuses  born out of wedlock. There would not have been any female infanticide. Married women would not have thought of aborting a foetus because it inconveniently interferes in their idea of carefree fun.

Nurturing motherhood is never a chance. Forever it is a choice. Such a motherhood has eternally the child's happiness and welfare as its ultimate goals. Without any expectations of any 'return gift', such a mother forever prays for the child's welfare, does everything possible for the child, can literally fight, nay, not just the world, but the very destiny! 

In the devotional literature called Bhakti poetry, there are lovely myths celebrating it. Yes, undoubtedly, the Yashoda saga celebrates it. Much more interesting are two motifs, the fish and the tortoise. The fish mother supports the child's growth just through remembrance, while the fish mother supports her baby through looking at it.What a vision indeed!

Pratima@In all fairness and honesty, i can say that Aai was such a nurturing mother as well. Well, i would like to go a step ahead, and assert yet again that Papa was a father with a mother's heart.