Tag Archives: lonliness

Leaving Behind Better Kids For This Planet ….

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I am actually writing this post in haste. No, wait! I am actually writing this post in rage, in frustration and in complete anticipation of the back lash that “Who am I to comment on parents, when I haven’t raised a kid?”

So roll your eyes and bring out the tomatoes, but just make sure that they are in bucketful, for I just attended a La Tomatina this fall and thus the squish will not bother me much.

Kids – ok how do you define them? Well here is how I go …

Curled up toes, eyes closed tight shut,

When looking innocent is the symbol of the cult,

Fairies and pixies, flowers that talk and the house with a candy door,

Who said there is a limit to which your imagination can soar?

Letters to Santa, wishing on eye lashes, 

The love for dirt and the fun in the splashes.

The urge to grow up but the belief in forever having your way,

When a good story over meal could make your day!

Yet all I see around today are reality shows where you need to thrust a hip and rock your bosom – even when at 5 you have little idea of what it symbolizes, crack jokes that make me squirm but the parents who face the cameras are in splits, the sequined tube dresses replacing the comfort shorts! And now little dolls that can give a 2 year old the Breast Feeding experience.

I wonder if I am old fashioned when I pick out story books filled with fairies for the kids I still read to, I wonder if I am teaching them all wrong when I urge them to get dirty instead of rebuking them for spoiling their mascara and eyeliner (all on a girl aged all of 3 years!) - I wonder if I am conditioned the wrong way?

I may not be a parent ever – but then should I not worry? I may be a parent without an umbilical cord connection – but then isn’t that all the same thing? I may be juvenile when I shudder at the thought of a 2 year old knowing what suckling is instead of stork delivering bundles and Santa gifting little puppies – but then am I wrong to worry?

I still remember the day when I discovered about Tamanna’s fascination over make up – all I wanted then was to hold her close and still want her to smell of baby powder. I wanted her to realize why I said it was all too soon when I took away her box of rouge. I wanted her to understand the joys of the times when it is ok to wear skirts with hairy legs and not be bothered about facial hair (all feminists at bay please – I would like my daughter to groom for herself, so you need not take out your knives at me accusing that I am one of those because of whom girls think that it is important to shave to fit in!) I just wanted her to know that blissful times do not last for long and thus she should wear the dirty tee, have a few bad cuts and learn to smile with a broken tooth – till the time it all doesn’t matter.

There’s so much time left to play the grown up games, the little feet attempts from a young age – but then that is a game right? Putting on Mamma’s lipstick, trying to walk in her heels – that doesn’t mean we get them baby heels or teach them how to line the lips for a perfect pout at 6 right? We can teach them all about “good touch and bad” without telling them about what “groping” and “lewd jokes/remarks” are all about right?

I want to know the difference between cuteness and ‘acting beyond age’ – I want to know if I am the only hyper one who finds it disturbing when little kids act like Moms and it shows their urgency to grow up and ripen before age. Also, how instead of picking them on our laps and telling them it doesn’t suit babies, we go on to make ads reinforcing the belief that when kids act grown up they look cute?

I wonder if this really doesn’t raise a single eyebrow apart from mine? -

A child who doesn’t live his/her childhood to the fullest, is he/she to be blamed for not knowing the joys of being a kid? Should we then put him/her under scrutiny in later years for not urging their next generation to live carelessly (when they themselves do not know what it means?) Is the era of information overload so powerful that it is eating up the belief of “birds and bees” and “tooth fairies”? Why is it that today a dance class is to get an entry into a reality show, a cricket camp only to discover the “Sachin for tomorrow”, a play date considered to be a waste of time, imaginary cooking only to cultivate habits of being a good daughter (in-law) and yes friends only allowed till they help in your studies. Why not just let them be? Am I missing out the point here of raising kids?

If that is the case, am glad that fate has left a big red looming question mark on my forehead when it comes to bearing children, for then I wouldn’t have to ponder much on this saying I read somewhere and I consider it so apt for our times:

“In our urge to leave behind a better planet for our kids,

We are forgetting to leave behind better kids for this planet”

I couldn’t agree more to this piece I found on Google Images (no copyright claimed)

Letters to My Daughter – Part V

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Dearest Bummy,

Yes, I know I had this conversation with you last night in my head, like the numerous other ones, but I have this urge to pen this down. I don’t know how much of an example of a traditional mom I will turn out to be, but I just want you to know that we pull along just fine without having to have an exact fit into defined roles. All I want to tell you today, is that there are choices to be made in life and there are traditions to follow – they both should be as per your comfort and should always be something you pick for yourself and not to gain acceptance by the world around you!

Remember the time I explained to your about “comfort”? Well today let us take on “tradition” :)

“Tradition” they define as a custom or ritual handed down from one generation to the other, what started in the past and continues till the present. “Tradition” as I have learnt, is knowing all that the society is made up of, and then choosing what you want to follow depending on the beliefs that make you up. I have never been the traditional daughter the society would have loved to cite as an example, yet I am just as human as the one who fits the shoe. Bummy, I have come to realize that it is much better to not wear the heels that cause you blisters, than to wear and feel that this shoe wasn’t cobbled for you, yet try to keep up the gait, because the world might think low of you. Strangely Bummy, the times we live in (and shall continue too) we try to bucket people into two categories who are either traditional or not. For the rest like me, sweety there’s a struggle – not for us, but for the world to categorize us and their inability to arrive to a conclusion.

So while wearing a skirt and jacket walking into the meeting room is seeing as “progressive women power”, then sharing a smoke with the colleagues is taken as “modernity” the just opposite happen when you walk in wearing a saree. You are of course expected to be NOT at ease, I mean come one, you are either a western-culture-influenced short skirt wearing girl, who wears saree only during special occasions or you are the saree clad one, who never prefer to show off her legs! Balance and tradition do not go hand in hand – or so we have been made to believe in recent times.

Tradition differs from class to class, yet another tough aspect of life that you have to gulp. A woman construction worker smoking a beedi or walking into the country liquor store for a nip bottle will not draw as much attention as you would, saree clad with your Davidoff in hand. Strangely, if there are gender defined shoes which the society tags for the argument pertaining to “tradition” it should be equal across all classes right? How I wish, that Utopia was true darling! Here, it is almost as if we have taken for granted that those with little “means” are corrupted for tradition and the “good girls” are only from families that have permanent house walls!

Tradition they say demands a lot, I have been however raised to believe that tradition has a lot to offer. All it demands in return, is your appreciating the customs that makes it up and then choosing the ones that you feel are attuned to your mindset (for the rest that don’t suit you, it demands a little respect.  What might be your choice, may not be others but that doesn’t mean we do not respect them! Right?)

Clothes don’t define what your roots are, your actions do. Your piousness in society standards don’t define your traditional morals, your respect to the world around you does. In order to uphold traditions you need not wear a saree, be a teetotaler or remain a virgin till you marry – for you must always remember that the first man/ woman to set these standards also had a choice – the choice to adhere to these or not. If they made their own choice, why can’t you? I adorn a saree, because nobody ever forced me to wear it, I was given the option of loving it or not. Your Apa*, never encouraged traditional clothing for children, for the simple reason that his little girls couldn’t run in flowy dresses. Thus, it is true that your mother never owned a single piece of salwaar kameez, till she entered college and wanted to wear one. I was never asked to pray, for faith has always been a personal affair in the family. ‘S Mashi**’ comes from a different faith and yet she is the daughter of the house. ‘A mesho***’ comes from a different faith and nationality, yet we all gather and wish them on Durga Pujo, for that is the tradition which the old lady set for the house. Tradition baby, is like your taste of “salt” nobody can ever define that for you. However, you need to try different cuisines to know your taste. Thus, tomorrow when I introduce you to art, music and culture lessons, do not think it is for the heck of making you a traditional girl, but mainly I want you to discover what you really want, and what will pay your bills and what will be your passion!

I don’t know how to answer your question (in case you ever ask me to) if I am traditional or not? How can I answer when I don’t know it myself. I learnt the rituals of Durga Puja not because I am traditional, but mainly because I found them fascinating – the stories, the smell, the chaos and yes the fun in doing things together. I learnt cooking not because I was told I need to learn it to feed my man, as the tradition goes. Instead, I was told that everyone should learn to cook to be independent – Ama**** hates it if she hears that one chooses to survive on “Maggi” because who wants to cook a lavish mean for one self? I learnt to drape a saree, not because it is the most traditional piece of clothing around me, mainly because I love the elegance it provides me and the self-confidence it oozes out! I do not smoke in front of my parents, not because of traditional demands (heck, then I would not have even told them!), but mainly out of the respect for somewhere I know they don’t like it. 

There’s a difference in me not allowing you to do things till a certain age and then after an age despite my not agreeing to your view-point, letting you make choices. I want to guard you till you are old enough to know that there are choices to be made. The world is a tapestry filled with traditions, I want you to pick and choose them. I don’t want you to abstain from anything for the argument of tradition, for trust me what is tradition in this part of the land, is not in the other part of the world. So traditions too come with their anti-thesis. It is up to you to decide which is the shoe that goes with your personality. Google, will be there to throw up answers, to provide you with all the information, however remember Google cannot make you a person. There are no buckets in which you need to be categorized when it comes to “traditions”, I don’t want to leave behind any legacies mandating you to follow. Yet, I want you to know my history, know the family you come from and then decide for yourself. 

In the end, I am sure once you adorn a saree and give a sweet smile there will be an aunty who says “Ki misti ghoroaa meye”***** – for the world loves to categorize you, it is a fascination they live by and it often feels good to oblige them, till of course you know at heart where you belong!

Loads of Love and Strength,

Amma

*Apa - what kids in the family call my father

**Mashi - Bengali addressal for mother’s sister

***Mesho - Bengali addressal for maternal aunt’s husband

****Ama - what kids in the family call my mother

***** - To Translate it means “What a sweet and lovely traditional girl”

Leaving on a Jetplane, but I know I'll be back again…

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Yes, by this time it’s up here, I’ll be up flying away from this land which is more than my own. I belong here and the madness and the wisdom I know will pull me back. And yes, M too – the best thing that happened to me here!

Till then please Mumbai, be what you are and yes take care of my baby too! It kills me to leave you, but the irony is you teach me to live everyday!

 

Safely tucked away …

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Just when I thought the ‘story’ was over, the book tumbled out of my hands. An old pressed flower intact – as if the life I sought to deny was still there in it’s wilted form. I picked it up and stared hard, the printed letters hazed in the background. Where was this picked from? What was it’s color (lavender of course!) ? And why today after so long, when I was just about to wrap the story and push in somewhere against the dark corners of the mind (the heart is long closed)?

 

Why are you confusing me again today by reminding me of the fragrance that no longer lingers in the air? Why are you luring me to preserve you a bit more, when I know that all that shall remain are bits and pieces of a lovely being that once was? Life cannot be infused in again right? No matter, how much I try to smell, all that fills up the nostrils is dry whiffs of dust!

 

I don’t want to erase you off, I don’t want to crumple you away – I want wilted memories to stay – securely tucked away within the pages of our unfinished story. I wish I could pick up again the last page sometime, where the pressed flower lay, but somewhere I guess the fear is that a wind might even break the reminiscent of what remains.

 

Some relationships are best defined in novels – guess I should leave ours too there. It’s better to have a memory with a hope, than to live a life of despair!

 

Stay good, tucked away within the pages of “Love Stories from Mahabharata”! 



Letters to my Daughter – Part IV

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Dear Bummy,

I think by now you already know all that I want to tell you through this letter, for that is all I have been talking to you in my head since last evening. The last weekend evening of your Ma’s rendezvous with the city that shaped her, was spent in discovering things I would like to tell you when someday we come back to settle here and sit by the sea, to share a cup of coffee. The very picture brings a smile to my face, it’s almost I can imagine your summer dress flowing in the breeze as I sit holding you close sniffing your freshly shampooed hair smelling of strawberry!

We might have had a fight before that. I think we will, for I know I am not going to be a cool mom. But you know what don’t fight back with me. It’s not worth it, I’ll be too obstinate to even pretend to listen to things which are a strict no –no. Instead pick up a call on Oma and trust me you’ll be soothed to know that I was more deviant than you can ever imagine. It’s ok don’t be shocked, we seldom can picture our parents as kids doing stuff they will never approve of now. But the truth is, they are humans too and so when Oma shows you a photograph of the ‘hippie’ stage of my life, kindly do not faint to see bandanas, black nail polish, gothic wear, chunk jewellery and yes not to forget hair in thousand braids!!!!

Disastrous as it may look and sound, it wasn’t. It did not shape me, it did not linger, it was just there to comfort me when I felt mis-fit in doing anything else. We all grow that way, clinging to various ‘comforts’ and there’s nothing wrong in that!

‘Comfort’ that is what I want to explain to you today, lest that evening by the sea never happens. I have learnt not to be too ambitious in life, so I jot these down, my child. Read it at leisure, one at a time for then it wouldn’t be preach!

  1. Baby, in life it is important to find a place that gives you comfort and yes it should be a distinct one which is no where close to my lap. In fact that space should be just yours devoid of any other human contact. I found mine in a small strip of virgin beach here, I hope you find yours somewhere. For then you shall discover yourself, when the world tags you as lost.
  2. There’s nothing as comforting as music, go discover your kinds. But remember NEVER share your IPod, just the way you won’t share your bra! Push-ups don’t work for everyone and not all are comfortable with the concept of half-cups! Similarly, Bhimsen Joshi might be too passé for some and Methany might be completely out of the blue. But, in the end, it’s your comfort. And trust me, even if you give into peer pressure at times to tune into what’s cool so that you can fit in, keep a back up playlist handy, for there’s nothing like a loop of favourite songs that never grow old, when you want to just disconnect from the rest of the world.
  3. Have one phone number on your speed dial list, which can comfort you at any hour of the night! Make sure but, that the person is a good listener or in fact at times ‘just’ a listener. It helps you the next morning and you wake up feeling much lighter, without any guilt. But yes, love NEVER use the person as your ‘punching bag’. Nothing hurts a person more than badly framed words, which are used to take out the vengeance about something he/she wasn’t a part of!
  4. I’ll always hug you to sleep, till the time you don’t throw me out of your room in want of ‘space’! Yes, I am shameless that way. But Hun, there’ll be hugs that you crave which I will not be able to offer. A strong pair of dad’s arms at times. Well I would offer you Opa’s but I know that would be a compromise I would be forcing you to make. But, it’ll do you good trust me, for it’ll help you find your comfort hug within yourself and then when sleep eludes you and the want of a strong hug creeps in really deep, you’ll slip under covers with someone like Hobbes, wearing your Winnie-the-Pooh socks and snore softly, while the world wonders how can you be so at peace with your own self.
  5. Living with me would ensure that there’s no cuisine you haven’t tried (unless your medical condition doesn’t permit!) and “I-don’t-like-to-eat” is something you would discover only once you start earning! But yes, I’ll help you discover something very early on – your comfort food and the acceptance that it acts the best too soothe you. Trust me, when you discover it you’ll perfectly understand why when you wake up during a few nights you find me sitting at the balcony with milk and cookies or a bowl of sambar and I assure you that I am ‘just thinking’. We shall ignore the over flowing ashtray that I seek to hide then, ok love?

Anarkali, it’s very important to be comfortable in the skin you are in. Correction, it is the most important thing, for then the rest follows. Once you discover your own self, no other jig saw puzzle can un-settle you baby!

Comfort Hugs and Kisses,

Amma

P.S: For more letters to my unfortunate unborn daughter click here :razz:

Letters to my daughter – Part III

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Dear Princess,

Yes :roll:  all you want at me, for it is indeed one of those RARE occasions when I decide to call you with a socially acceptable mush name! Or so what people think – for to me Anarkali is a perfectly socially befitting name!!!

To say that I am missing you bad would be the greatest oxymoron of all times right – how can I miss something I never had till now? Well I do and I crave – like never before. Maybe because after I ceased to be a princess I realized how wonderful it was to be one and I crave to make someone feel the same.

I don’t know where you are – whether you have already arrived in this world or are en-route or whether you have just expressed your desire to a stork to be transported to a doorstep. In any which way princess, I just hope you find your way to me in the next three years. But will you do one thing my child, as and when you decide to bless me will you meet GM once on the way. It’ll make life easier for both me and you, trust me!

The walls I have built around me, I don’t want to break them down and yet I want you to know the real me – so I think a long chat with GM will solve the dilemma. Those grey hairs are courtesy a lot many of my escapades, my dear!

Remember our dream den Princess – the one where there are no walls but just book shelves lined with the choicest ones picked by both of us, where there won’t be floors but just Persian rugs. And where instead of TV we’ll have a white screen for all those animated movies and jungle documentaries and a white board to doodle and learn new words – I shared that dream with someone. Not a friend, not even a close acquaintance. Not even Uncle A or Aunt S. I don’t know how to answer ‘who’. It was only when I rattled on to the coffee tables and the dreams of it storing our half played Scrabble or jigsaw puzzle games that I realized that the milk and cookie sipping escapades are only ours and there’s no scope of anyone else! He says I am fiercely possessive – I peep into my bag of dreams and smile at the little broken toy pieces I seek to guard. Scrap to me is valuable and that is perhaps why when you insist on preserving a twig, I’ll give into your imagination of it being a magic wand! He also thinks I’m sily and so I stopped sharing my dreams with him too – I am saving them all up for you.

You know I think I saw Bruno yesterday – yes the golden retriever with whom we’ll roll in the mud till we can challenge the Ariel or the Surf Excel guys! I was returning home when a lost Bruno caught my attention, as I stroked it, it’s warm nuzzle made me realize that he’s lost, I took him around the compound to the little boy holding the broken leash. I wish I could bring him home baby, but I guess I’ll wait for you so that we can bring both Buzz and Bruno home together!

It’s going to be a bit lonely here Princess, GM feared that, do you think you would be able to manage with the bed time stories and sky gazing activities I indulge you into? Or is Aunt S right when she says that her baby can already sense Uncle I’s voice and gets excited. Am sure we’ll work a way out Princess.

Why this letter today, maybe because am a little bit vulnerable. I was on the verge of breaking down my walls when I realized that I have to hold them up for you. But then again I sensed that it might not give you the glimpse of how your mom was really as a girl who believed on Valentine’s Day too once – long long back and did wish on fallen eye lashes. So maybe when one day you feel that you are stuck up with a demented mother devoid of all girly emotions – I’ll show you this letter to give you a glimpse of me and then remind you of the chat you had with GM en-route my world. Yes, I know then other questions will follow – but guess to you I will answer each one of them.

One thing I am going to do different but Princess, which GM would have ever approved of. I am going to introduce you to death before you discover it the hard way. I am going to share the story of Gautam Buddha* with you much before the time that my mom did with me!

Milk and cookies strike up awesome conversations and that’ll be our comfort food even when roles reverse and once again I become a child with dreams in my eyes – for you.

Come soon princess, I have almost perfected the animated steps of ‘5 little monkeys’ and ‘Good boy Carl’!

Stomach bubbles and Butt kisses,

Amma

————————————————

The lore goes that an old lady was distraught on losing her only son and went to Buddha asking him to bring him alive. Buddha tried to reason when she challenged his powers as a divine entity and said that he never really realized the truth about human emotions or being. The calm and ever smiling Buddha then agreed to grant her wish but asked her to fetch an essential ingredient which he needed to instill life back into the child. He asked her to fetch a handful of mustard seeds from a house which has never witnessed a single death. The old lady without a thought set off to find such a house-hold. It was only after she covered the entire village in vain that she realized the true lesson which Buddha wanted to impart – that how no one can escape death. As I questioned a blank space that day sleeping on her bed that ‘why GM?’ – Ma told me this story – handed down to her by her grand father when she had lost her brother – her lifeline.

P.S: For more letters to my unfortunate unborn daughter click here ;) ;)