"This story we heard from the mouths of Bundel bards
Like a man she fought, she was the Queen of Jhansi"
Subhadra Kumari Chauhan
With the concept of celebrating Mothers Day relatively new in India, another second Sunday of May silently passed giving at least those who observe it an official opportunity to reckon some of those glorious mothers of the past - as well as the present - that have dazzled the world with the way they lived their very life. Coming to the practical world from the world of a million myths, ancient India perhaps for the first time started speaking of a totally different aspect of motherhood, a bit different from the cliche 'carrying', 'breastfeeding' and 'lulling a child to sleep' kinds, from June 17 1858 when the Queen of Jhansi fell on the battlefield of Kotah-ki Serai in Gwalior.
The legend of Lakshmi Bai is all the more capturing considering that a simple Brahmin girl was taken to warring against the most redoubtable force in the history for the Empire's rejecting the claim of her adopted son to her throne. No sheen is taken off the Queen's abnegation by the subsequent events where the adopted son of hers fled with his mother's aides and lived with a pension and special care rendered by the British Raj. In fact, it has only added to the lusture of the legend.
The country have since then witnessed many a mother's struggle that are obviously more than worth mentioning. The legends range from an anonymous mother from Kerala that carried out self-immolation in order to let her blind son have her eyes to a bit more popular one that had retreated to a recess for a while with her two young childen following her young husband's assassination, only to reemerge as one of the most powerful women if not persons on the land and paved way for the Women's Reserval Bill, which packed the potential for empowering more mothers across the country.
It has been quiet pleasing for the eyes to watch this Mothers Day that had been celebrated silently with the exchanging of quotes over the internet and mobile phones having had something more to cheer about. This is all about yet another noble struggle being undertaken by a mother of a boy that has been according to her - as well as millions in India - imprisoned in a foreign land for all charges except one with a standing reason. This is the case of an Indian citizen, Anand Jon Alexander who has been a celebrity designer in the USA, presently fighting for his righteous freedom from confinement in that country and his mother, Shashi Abraham who is carrying out the struggle on his behalf.
As a matter of fact, Shashi has always been on the forefront of the campaign intended to reserving justice for Anand who is facing 14 vitually and ostentatiously farcical charges from 'touching while helping the model dress' to 'attempted kiss'. This could also be the reason why a good number of people across the world with a 'craving for justice' are deprecating the ways of the American judicial system that has awarded Anand a decade more in prison for the above given misconduct. To add to this travesty of justice, is the fact that the white innocent girls said to be victimised by a Casanova were hardly models by profession, but professional strippers and S&M bondage models that more interestingly, were known to each other.
On the other side of things, although speculation that the case of Anand could be the culmination of American whites' racial intolerance, is flying high, the optimists in India fortunately seem to have hardly bought it; instead they rate it more towards a case of mis-manipulation of the legal system of America by a few individuals or a group that mischievously aspire to usurp entirely or a part of the hard-earned fortune and goodwill of Anand as a reputated fashion designer.
The most striking part of the relentless campaign carried out by Shashi for her ward's freedom is her firm mindset that lays exposed to the world through her statement, " I as a proud, God-fearing and law abiding mother of India that conduct my struggle for justice from a land, the populace of which is guided by a strong woman lovingly called Amma by the people, would never have tried to justify my son if I had the slightest of hints that he could have misbehaved with a woman, or the women that accuse him of misbehaving with them and want him sentenced to the darkness of the prison taking hearsay as evidence - without even producing the basic evidence for proving the case of rape or any other charge of molestation - belonged to a subjugated or repressed group such as war criminals, riot victims or those languishing women folk that we get to see in certain backward societies and communities".
Shashi adds,"Instead those women that pride themselves as innocent white girls come from the most affluent corners of some of the most advanced societies where they have always ate, drank and made merry (still do it with no restraints), except at the moment of the day when they appear before the court to explain their travails as miserable rape victims".
Today, not so long after another Mothers Day having passed, the case of Anand and his mother Shashi intriguingly stands as a question mark before the public of India that have been second to none when it comes to the possession of righteous indignation. At the end of it, will this mother from India with a never-say-die attitude and a galaxy of moral values emerge triumphant marking a famous victory for the entire Indian population, or will she bite the dust as had the most fascinating mother figure in the history of India? Nevertheless, she has the famous words of someone a bit more more famous to guide her through these difficult times, "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win". What more one needs for an exhortation when they come from the very face of the Father of the Nation?
