A young Kerala man took to social media to wish his mother a happy married life. The post acknowledges the struggles of the mother in an abusive marriage, the sacrifices she made to raise her child, and the courage she showed throughout.
Gokul Sreedhar, a member of the CPM student wing SFI, shared this heartfelt post and it’s going viral for all the right reasons.
In India, divorces are demonised, seen as a product of sheer ‘westernisation’ of the society, and a low divorce rate is seen as a ‘good thing’. In such a scenario, seeing the society cheer for this congratulatory post for the second marriage of a woman is truly a delight.
The post originally in Malayalam, translates to this in English-
A woman who set aside her life for me. She has suffered a lot in what was a disastrous marriage. After getting beaten, when blood dripped from her forehead, I have often asked her why she bore it. I remember her telling me that she was willing to suffer for my sake as she was living for me. That day, when I left the house with her, I had decided about this moment. My mother, who set aside her entire youth for me, has a lot of dreams and heights to conquer. I have nothing more to say. I realised that this is something that does not need to be kept hidden. Mother, happy married life.
Gokul adds that he thought ‘a lot about whether to write such a note’. He urges people ‘with eyes of suspicion, pity, and hate’ to not look here. Here we are celebrating the normalisation of ending toxic marriages, without attaching the notion of ‘log kya kahenge‘ to it.
Within 20 hours, the post has garnered almost 30K likes, 3K shares and comments.
Here’s to the zillion sacrifices our mothers made for us, here’s to not romanticising them, and here’s to de-stigmatising divorces in the Indian society.