Un-Ma-sking Mother’s Day : A Look at Our Go-To Gaalis

A look at our desi ‘gaalis’ and their gendered bases involving our very own Ma.

We love gushing about the mother figure.

As a culture, we are fixated on motherhood and its self-effacing nature of agency. “Ma” has a nostalgic element attached to her very being that can make any desi turn on the water tap and weep insufferably in 2 minutes, tops.

This got us thinking how intrinsically organic and legit our allegiance is to the Ma who embodies our very own Bharat, the Ma who is the self-abnegating nurturer to every desi (right from a newborn to our very own Prime Minister), the Ma who is expected to micromanage every situation with a smile, the ma jin pe hum kabhi nai ja sakte and surprisingly, the Ma who is constantly embroiled in the choicest cuss words and rolled off the puffed-up tongue without a second’s thought.

A close look at our swear words and their usage left us feeling that our easiest retaliations will be our own undoing.

Ma Tujhe Salaam?

We Indians, for some strange reason, love to drag in the idea of incest, irrespective of context.

Motherhood is taken by the scruff of its neck and thrown off the tallest building possible when you need a quick fix to gratify your temper and your emotions and lash out at the person before you. The suffix most popularly used with madar clinches the deal, assuring denigration of the worst kind.

Let’s Face It

Commercialising Ma, waxing eloquent about motherhood and selling gratitude on marked days are very gratifying, but when it comes to our daily lexicon, why make things less skewed?

After all, your Ma is yours, granted no agency whatsoever, left to my poor discretion to be clothed with reverence, unclothed with profanities and then suitably deified again.

Mumma’s Honour Matters!

Ideally, the obscenities we use are supposed to affect a person enough to trigger a nerve. Words like madar**** and harami are digs at the mother’s sexual habits, whether she has a say in it or not.

All in Good Humour?

Recent times, however, have witnessed a cultural re-alignment wherein these expletives have stopped affecting the victimised. People lashing out at each other, cracking a joke or passing off-hand remarks will invariably make light of these profanities and sprinkle exchanges with such cuss words.

Going by how seamlessly these obscenities are being woven into the cultural fabric, don’t be shocked to hear little kids ma(r)dar-ing the mother figure every once in a while.

Tujhe Sab Hai Pata, Meri Ma?

If that wasn’t enough, here’s more.

The Ma, who might also happen to be someone’s behen, is colourfully painted with much creative prowess and incorporated into a lot of profanities.

If the ultimate aim is to hit where it hurts the most and thereby attack mothers, what amuses us to no extent is how popular culture presupposes sexuality to be the key word.

After all, a woman’s esteem lies in her sexuality, right?

Let’s Go Surreal!

So who cares if we’ve broken promises to our mothers, not showed up when she needed us the most or let all those calls go to our voice mails?

What matters is whether or not we’ve pulled an Oedipus, because, well, that is what a woman, leave alone a mother, boils down to? Her sexuality, right?

Here’s hoping we’ve made our point.

Language structures consciousness in much deeper ways than we can conceive. What is worse, is that both men and women fall prey to such misogyny. Here’s an earnest plea to ourselves to rethink what we say.

At a time when rape cases are making headlines every day and a general air of intolerance pervades the socio-cultural sphere, we need to take heed of our conscious/unconscious slips and buckle up! Do let us know whether you agree or not!