This Dad On What Mother’s Day Actually Means To Him

Hallmark Cards has developed a good business model — make each day of the year a ‘special’ one. Just dedicate it to someone, something, somewhere and it will count (at least for their bottom line, it will). People are suckers for ‘days’! At last count, there was a Father’s day, a Mother’s day, a friend’s day, I think there is a dog’s day or a pet’s day somewhere in there too. In India, we celebrate Children’s Day and Teacher’s Day. too, but credit for those does not (thankfully) go to Hallmark Cards!  Honestly, really, do we have anything better to do? Are we really fooled that easily?  

It is obvious that I don’t give any of those days much weightage. All of them barring a couple maybe, and one of those that I do give importance to is Mother’s Day. I mean, even before Hallmark could mark the day, I knew the importance of Maa when I saw Shashi Kapoor shut one of my all-time favourite Bollywood heroes, Amitabh Bachchan, up with that evergreen line in the film Deewar… “Mere paas maa hai!” (I have mother). If my Bollywood heroes were saying it, then surely it must be true, mum must be extremely important!