When God chose to send you into the world He sent you through a Mother, and he put this instinct of Spontaneous Love and Protection in your mother's heart. She cared for you, loved you, protected you and gave you everything in life that you needed. As a matter of fact I would say that your mother was the first face of God that you saw when you came into this world.
When the Emperor Akbar's mother died, at a time when he was very old himself, he started weeping loudly in his royal court. When people wondered how a strong man like Akbar could weep whose sword had swept the whole of India, this is what he said:
"There will be many who will bow before me, obey my orders, serve me and protect me-- but where will I hear that loving voice of a mother that would angrily say:
'Akbar, why havent you changed your clothes! Why havent you taken your meals!'
Who will be there to chide me as lovingly as she did? She is irreplaceable."
On this Mother's Day we pay Homage to our dear Mothers if they are still with us and we pay homage to the souls of those loving Mothers if they are in Heaven!!
When I was a child I became very attached to my mother, even though my father was equally loving. But I dont suppose that any love in the world can replace the love of a mother.
We lived in a large house in the Hills, and I would follow my mother around from room to room. I was afraid I might lose her one day! As a matter of fact I was so disconsolate without her that for a month after I was put in kindergarten and had to be away from home, I made her sit with me in class, with the permission of the Reverend Mother of the School.
I saw a Hindi Movie in one of the local cinema halls in which a little girl was rocking the cradle in which her mother had kept her as a child and she was singing in Hindi:
"Maa! Pyaari Maa!
Bhoole Na jhoole ke Din"
" Mother! O Dearly Loved Mother!
How can I forget those days of the cradle!"
She was singing this song to the portrait of her mother who had left the world.
Ever since that day I was in a state of virtual panic that I would lose my mother too. Subconsciously that may have been the reason for my following her from room to room in the house and making her sit with me in school.
When I was on my flight to Harvard in the USA, and my parents stood at the airport, and as my plane went up in the sky, I felt as if I was leaving behind everything and going to nothing, and I shed tears of sorrow.
At Harvard I was studying for my Master's and Ph.D in Nuclear Physics, but all the years that I was there the thought my of Mother remained deep inside my heart!
Then she fell ill and I telephoned the hospital in London where she was.
The nurse said: "Mr. Mehta, your mother is very very ill, you better come immediately!"
I left Harvard and the USA immediately, leaving behind my car, clothes, apartment my job and my studies-- all of which became meaningless. A bridge of helping hands came to help me at every stage, my friends and professors at Harvard, the local public at Cambridge, Boston and New York Airport. And within a day or two I was in London.
I found my mother lying very ill. She said to me: "Priya, now that you have come, this happiness will remain with me forever!!" And then she became unconscious. Perhaps she had been waiting to say these last words to me.
My father, brother and I, rushed her in an ambulance to the Emergency Unit of the St, Mary's Hospital in London. The doctor in charge came out and said to us:
"You better go home and come in the morning! This might be a long case!"
We went back to our rented apartment in London. The moment we got there, the telephone rang. As I was the closest to the phone I picked it up.
And I was destined to hear these fateful words, which I had dreaded all my life:
"Mr. Mehta, this is St. Mary's Hospital. Your mother just died!!"
It was a shock I recovered from only after many years, when everything in the world appeared to me to be without meaning. There was a gap in my heart which nothing could fill.
Her Name was Smt. Savitri Devi, also known as Mahamateshwari. Today we live in her home, our ancestral home which is named : "Savitri Nivas", "The Abode of Savitri," and I can feel her presence in the house, loving me and protecting me all the time. I know that she is protecting the children of the world everywhere from her heavenly abode and giving them her love and nearness.
Of Course my Father remained like a Father and Mother to me all my life so that I did not miss her that much.
I commiserate with all those who have lost their mothers in life, and I pray for those whose mother's are still alive, that God give them the strength to face that inevitable loss in their lives to come.
And I Salute Mother's Day and I salute all the mothers of the world and bow my head before them all!
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