Our mother is our greatest strength, and our biggest pride. She is our greatest source of happiness, teaching us the value of sacrifice and hard work and making us grow as strong beings.
Today, as we celebrate Mother’s Day, we are happy to give you a glimpse into what motherhood is truly about, coupled with the obstacles and the sacrifices it entails. The women featured in our list not only inspire now women today, but will keep inspiring all the generations to come.
Adding on to the celebration, the people of Odisha have another reason to celebrate, as our list features some illustrious mothers from our state motherland itself!
Basanti Rana: Confidence Shines Through Her
Life throws many challenges at us, but with our resilience and strength, we can overcome anything.
Basanti Rana, a mother of three stands as a burning example of this. Hailing from Jajpur of Odisha, Basanti broke all the stereotypes and fought against the many difficulties and humiliations hurled at her, due to a misfortune that struck her during her childhood. She was only 3 when she contracted polio, due to which she became handicapped. Even worse, she was also treated as a social outcast.
Even then, she never let her morals down. Her indomitable willpower propelled her to become a leading entrepreneur, uplifting countless women from impoverished backgrounds. During her graduation days, she mastered the art of stitching, which she later shared with a large number of women from the slum areas to make them empowered and skilled. She even opened her training center, guided them, and helped them bloom into young entrepreneurs. She has over 15 machines in her center to teach her students stitching. Over 1200 families started their ventures, showcasing the transformative power of determination. To her credit, she has successfully nurtured around 200 young girls and has transformed them into budding entrepreneurs.
2. Rambai Das: A Real Go-Getter
When it comes to managing a home and a family together, women have left no stone unturned in succeeding in both fields.
One such mother is Raimati Das, who emerged as an exemplary woman, overcoming several hardships to raise her two daughters.She hails from Jamurda village in Bargarh.
Since her young days, she has been continuously helping her family with farming. However, her life took an unfortunate turn when she got married to man of Pikrihjaran village. She became a subject of unpardonable torture and misery after she gave birth to a daughter. Her in-laws tortured her due to being the mother of a girl, snatching the joys of motherhood from her. It was one fine day when she decided to walk out of the painful marriage with two of her daughters.
With no money left to rear her children, she went to her parents but later found out that her stepfather spent all the money on liquor. She took a land of 2.5 acres on lease from the village headman. Her life then took a positive change when she started cultivating cauliflowers on the land, which earned her a profit of 10,000. She later started cultivating potatoes on the field and earned greater profit. Drawing inspiration from this, she now cultivates cauliflower, bitter gourds, potatoes, and chilies, which now helps her save about 50,000 to contribute to the household expenditure and feed her two daughters.
She sells the vegetables she cultivates in the markets at Painchhatar and Barhaguda.
3. Raimati Ghuria: An Inspiration For All
Hailing from Nuaguda village of Kundra block, Raimati Ghuria inspires women to balance their profession and personal life perfectly. Her profound interest in the conversation since childhood led her to instill the importance of organic farming. Her expertise and efforts in seed conservation led her to preserve traditional crops, especially indigenous rice and millet varieties.
She has conserved over 72 traditional rice varieties and 30 millet varieties. Her vast expertise in the field helped her empower around 2,500 farmers by imparting them the best possible techniques. Raimati has become a catalyst for change, nurturing a community of eco-conscious agriculturists.
A loving mother to three children, she puts an equal amount of dedication to both her personal and work life with all her dedication. To her credit, she even runs a farm school in her village and often holds training programs for farmers there. Her years of efforts and dedication earned numerous accolades at the state and national levels.
3.D. Subhalakshmi- The Iron Woman
Among the remarkable stories of inspiring mothers, one shines brightly, there’s another that deserves a mention. Mothers have always embodied patience and resilience, and D. Subhalakshmi’s ordeal is a testament to this.
Residing in the Koraput district and nearing the age of 92, Subhalaskmi exemplifies she has been bravely taking up challenges her life kept throwing at her. She takes care of her paralytic son and her 95-year-old immobile husband with all her devotion. Not only this, but God tested her time and again after her marriage, even taking her older son away due to cancer.
Confined to a decrepit home, Subhalaskmi begins and ends each day in service to her loved ones. Her unwavering commitment to her family is an inspiration for all those mothers who wish to nurture a beautiful house. She provides unconditional care to her son and her husband. She feeds them and cleans them up daily without even complaining.
Even as her youngest son shoulders the burden of providing for the family through daily wage labor, Subhalaskmi is the unbreakable pillar of her house, a doting mother and a protective wife.
5. Annapurna- The Mother of Orphans
The idea of motherhood goes beyond just giving birth. Sometimes, a woman who hasn’t given birth, but unconditionally nourishes little kids, brings them up, and becomes a mother figure to them. Annapurna, a 63-year-old woman from Jamshedpur, is one such example.
Hailing from a middle-class family in Jamshedpur, Annapurna was an ambitious young woman. Even though she pursued economics honors, she always had a strong wish to work for the welfare of society. Her wish was finally answered when she saw an advertisement by the SOS Children’s Village for a young woman to volunteer as a mother for orphan children. To her delight, due to her willingness and good academic record, she even got selected. For a brief period, she even got trained at a Mother’s Training Centre in Faridabad and came back to Bhubaneswar to join the NGO.
As the Lord bestowed upon her the happiness of motherhood, he also gave her challenges as well. In the year 1994, when the cyclone struck Odisha, she faced great difficulties in coping with the aftermath. The children faced difficulty in coping with food scarcity and other facilities required to grow the orphan children. Even then, her courage never dwindled. She never got married or had kids of her own, but her unwavering dedication to raising orphans is commendable. This even earned her the title, ‘The Mother of Orphans’.
Today all her 27 children are well-qualified and leading a life as good as each one of us!
As we celebrate International Mother’s Day today, New Delhi Odia Samaj extends its warm greetings to all the beautiful mothers out there and encourages them be an inspiration in their sweet way for their own kids.
Happy Mother’s Day to all!
Our mother is our greatest strength, and our biggest pride. She is our greatest source of happiness, teaching us the value of sacrifice and hard work and making us grow as strong beings.
