Mother's Day is celebrated in several countries across the world on the second Sunday of May. This year, on the special occasion, tech giant Google also joined the celebration with a special Doodle. Doodles are the temporary alteration of Google's logo to commemorate special days and occasions. Unlike most Doodles which are simply images or GIFs, this time Google opted for a GIF that works as a slide of four images. The slides illustrate ways in which a mother/ maternal figure nurtures and guides a child. The running theme of the GIF is two hands – a mother's hand and the tiny hand of a child – performing essential tasks together.
The first slide features the child holding the mother's finger whereas, in the second slide, the mother is teaching the child to read Braille. In the third slide, the child is being taught how to wash hands and in the fourth, the mother and child are planting saplings together.
On the occasion, the official Twitter account of Google India shared the Doodle and said, “Our Google Doodle goes out to all mothers- who've held our hands through it all: thick and thin, highs and lows. #MothersDay.”
While the status of mothers is sacrosanct across cultures, a special day was dedicated to mothers only in 1908 by the US. It traces its origin to an American woman called Anna Jarvis who wanted to set aside a day to honour the work and sacrifices made by mothers after her mother died in 1905. To do so, she organised the first formal Mother's Day celebration in Grafton, West Virginia, in May 1908.
Following repeated petitions for a special day dedicated to mothers, in 1914 US President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. In India too, the same day is marked for the occasion.