That fourth monkey

That Fourth Monkey Is Mine! 

You've seen that age old picture? It's the fourth ape, mine.. The sum of all three. He sees nobody, speaks to nobody and hears nothing... In fact, I commented that the fourth monkey looks strikingly like my girls! Friends agree that he looks like her kids too. My girls also see nobody except those they want to, speak to nobody, unless they want something, and hear nothing .. unless it concerns them! In fact, sometimes when I think of all the mischief I was up to in my college years, I am glad that they are so engrossed in their phones that they have barely any attention left for the outside world!

Oh yes, I worry about cyberbullies and stalkers and all kinds of deviants and strangers online and tell them to keep revising their privacy settings but those are mere peanuts compared to the world we called out own while living away from the safety net at home.

We had bikes, we had freedom, we had a budget (while I spent almost entirely on petrol) and we had no cell phones. So a call home was an event that we generally did not indulge in. A call home meant standing in queue and waiting for your turn. And then it cost money, (I told you we had a budget) there was no Paytm or bank transfer even, (money was sent the old fashioned way by cheque and took time to show up in the bank account!). As a result in five years of college life, I spoke to my mother all three times. Once, when my dad was ill, once when I got the news that my grandmother died and once when my grandfather passed away soon thereafter! Communications were exchanged by mail. Yes, old fashioned letters, sent by post, you know, stuck in an envelope and stamps attached? By the time it reached my parents and they replied, whatever it was I was talking about was long over… and forgotten.

 

So that was the amount of supervision my parents had over me when I was in law school. We went on crazy long drives, barely attended classes, jazzed off to forts and hilltops, treated Goa and Lonavla like it was our backyard, ate eggs and bread when we were hungry, ate bread and eggs when we were broke, barely kept regular hours and generally had a blast. We also got by. Simultaneously we did our internships and assignments and passed those exams too! And don’t forget there was no Google. Every research paper was done the hard way, sitting in the library and reading books. There was no copy and paste, everything was written by hand. As for the internships? We collected names of lawyers and their addresses and went there and waited and hoped they would take us on, even for a month or so! When we were bored we watched movies (in halls, even buying tickets in black!) And went on long unscheduled drives. And if we had an accident we'd just pick ourselves up and carry on! 

Now times HAVE changed. As they should!

My daughters call me almost every day. Sometimes more than once if they want something. I have never been a fan of phone conversations. I remember when I got married my in-laws used to ask me if I wanted to call my mother. Everyday. Sometimes twice a day. They were a very close-knit family and liked to talk to each other. After some prodding, I began calling my mum almost every day. For a few days, she was quiet. Then she suddenly blurted out, “Are you happy? Is anything wrong?” "No, no,” I replied hastily. “Then why are you calling every day?” That was that. 

Anyway, the girls have their own laptops and smartphones and Bluetooth speakers and headphones and every conceivable gadget that is supposed to make life easier. They still wait until the last minute to get an assignment done, they still whine about how much they have to “write”, what crap was served at the Mess and stuff like that. The problems remain the same as they were when we were young, it's just that nowadays parents have to suffer through them too! One even complains that I do not visit her! When I was alone I was always afraid that my mother would actually visit me! And of course, here we are planning their internships. Wondering who to contact because one child wants to intern with an NGO that works with street workers and one wants to intern with a fancy company!

Yes, my daughters are both away at college but I know more about their lives than I really wish to know. Generally knowing that they are well is enough, but that is not to be. I have an overload of information. I even know more than I want to about Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas and that cute guy in “Stranger Things” but that is another story! The spouse is usually in the know. I am zapped out of my wits when a request comes for a 'night out' or 'late pass' ( trust me, we never had all that, thankfully!).

One daughter is coming home tomorrow. The other follows on Sunday. One will be here for 3 weeks and another for almost two months! My house will be full again for a bit of time. They will fill my world with their words and chatter and noise and we will go over those stories of “gabarfalli” and IR and the puppy dog again…. The apartment has been painted. I have actually dumped some of their stuff in cardboard cartons and am waiting for them to organize it all while they are here! Will they do it? Or come February will I be sitting there gritting my teeth? My husband says the latter is more likely but hope blooms eternal in a mother’s heart! Do I miss them when they are away? You bet I do. But after they are back for a few days, it somewhat feels like they never left… And I look at their room which looks hurricane-stricken and hope their classes start soon. So I can miss them again. As my younger daughter would say, “You’re too emo!” So you all can crib about phones and the internet all you want, I'm actually happy the fourth ape has finally been found!