The part played in a Western fairy tale by the wicked stepmother is, in much of India, played by the powerful and evil mother-in-law. From traditional folk song to Bollywood film, she is an archetypal character: the bitch-power, the devil woman, the old hag whose tests must be overcome for our heroine to advance into her own power. Whole soap-opera

Does not mother love belong to the “smallest,” but also indispensable, things in life, for which many people paradoxically have to pay by giving up their living selves?

He said that in the presence of the children, and they looked at me with amazement. It’s terrible to think that I sacrificed my entire self to beautifully perform tasks that they consider obvious, natural.

One young woman, reared during the era of domestic containment, resented the fact that her mother had not been a full-time homemaker.