Vande Mataram

Today is for odes.

Odes that may not fulfill the literary requirements imposed by know-it-all scholars and others too unbothered to challenge the status quo.

But then I digress.

The ode is to the purveyors of a process and act so rife that we’ve come to think it normal, easy and straightforward.

We see them daily, perhaps even accord them favours due to their “special” status, gush over them on special days and so on and so forth.

I once read that though a work of art has been expressed in a million ways, there is yet that which we are yet to hear from you. Your voice is distinct.

So here I am eulogizing a people who with all the accolades they’ve gotten have still not gotten enough.

To the ones who bridge the gap of two realms.

Who when they have been freed of the burden of carrying you within themselves still carry you in their hearts and minds all their lives.

To the ones who have an almost Godlike involvement in receiving and preserving life.

Whose devotion is incomparable.

Below tweet has context in the new note crisis that happened earlier this year.

To Mothers.

To My Mother

To My Wife who bestowed on me the special honor of being a Dad exactly a month ago, and has borne it all with such poise and grace.

I See You … I Celebrate You….I Love You Without Wax.

If you have read this far and have not Googled it, you deserve to know that Vande Mataram means ‘I praise thee, Mother’ and was a popular chant and slogan that came to be associated with the Indian Independence struggle against British rule, India being the Mother in that context.