Worry lines...

I have been ignoring this blog for too long. I've been busy scheduling posts elsewhere (I have been too lazy to post all the links here) and writing poetry and this little sliver of light has been dwindling away in the corner.
In the meantime, a lot of water has flown under the bridge. One girl (Isha) has actually cleared her board exams and managed to go away to college in Pune. Yes, she seems to have settled in nicely with her hostel and classes. The younger one (Amisha) is poised on the brink of her half-yearly exams and soon shall be taking her boards as well. If all goes according to plan, by this time next year she too will be studying in some college away from home and I shall be wondering whose head I can chew up next!
Predictably, Amisha continues to give me a lot of grief... I never see her studying, she is always chattering with her friends or watching some stupid "Blacklist" on Netflix or up to no good on whatever is the trending app of the day! But you know what? I've learnt to just smile it away. Isha always complained that she got all the brunt of my anger and I was much more relaxed when it came to Amisha and I finally think she might have been right. After going through the throes of dragging one child up I guess we are better equipped (read calmer) to handle the second one!
Having said that, I've also been learning a lot from the girls. They are now at an age where I can have a half decent conversation without either of us flying into a screaming rage and they enrich and scandalise me with snippets of their lives. Amisha is now writing a blog (!!!!) and I find her ideas innovative and interesting... despite the fact that her cellphone has now become an extension of her hand! Isha of course is far away and what they say about distance making hearts fonder is completely true. She is also coping on her own, had to visit a dentist without me being there to hold her hand and all in all I'm quite ready to pat myself on the back and say that I can almost see the finishing line!!!
Almost. Because don't forget there's a whole round of college entrance tests etc yet to be scheduled and poked at.
Poked at because you know teenagers. There's a slew of emails from the school regarding college entrance and when I ask she all she does is shrug and say, "Chill." You bet!!! This morning I asked her which colleges she will be applying to and she mumbled two names and there I was having a cardiac arrest because we all know about the rat race and the stiff competition to get into these places. I suspect this girl actually derives intense pleasure from seeing the worry lines on my face!
My bad back has ensured I am in bed most of the time. In a way that is a blessing for Amisha, I cannot hound her as much as I want to, lying in bed and calling for her is no competition to plonking myself in her room and eating her head and she knows it! She also runs away to the guest room to "study" because then she cannot hear me when I call. I am so tempted to get a remote bell.
So I read books and I think. I also worry about all the things I could have told Isha but didn't... you know those pearls of wisdom, like potato cooks faster if there is no tomato or sour thing in it? That if oil catches fire she should never pour water on it? Like if she rides pillion on a bike theres that little thing you put your foot on, she should not drag her feet about like I've seen people do?
So I groan and grunt and get up and go and tell Amisha. She looks at me like I just grew a second nose!

I swear, I have worry lines running up my arms because of these two! 

Why I should not be writing about Parenting!

It's been a busy few weeks. One daughter developed respiratory distress and had to be hospitalised for three nights, she has only just been allowed back to school. No, she does not have asthma. But with all the dust and pollution around, are you really surprised? Her pediatrician and pulmologist think it was caused by a bacterial infection. The other one has been suffering for a few months with pain in the joints of the wrists and fingers. Initially we thought it was a ruse to avoid writing, but she seemed to be in agony so over the past four months we have repeatedly been visiting doctors in succession: a pediatrician, an endocrinologist and a pediatric rheumatologist. (I have learnt so many big words this year!!)We have done a battery of blood tests and even a nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) test which entails electric currents being passed through the hand and the doctors are as yet unable to come up with a diagnosis! Today, we shall try Homeopathy. I'm grabbing at straws here. Add to that the usual rigmarole of the wedding season, social obligations, school duties (bake a cake, collect a cake, deliver a cake), filial obligations and daily living. My work has not only taken a back seat but has also probably fallen off the wagon and I have no time to do anything but somehow breathe and stay alive, much less write.

In fact I have received a few emails with writing prompts and encouraging words saying that I have not written a blog post for a while and I should.  I have ruthlessly been deleting them all. You see, in all the melodrama  that has been going on, I have had a lot of time to think. And the primary thought that has occupied my mind is that I am NOT qualified to be writing on parenting.

Here's why:

1.    I am evil: As I have often explained, I am not mummy material. The sight of babies' drool does not send me into a tizzy. I cannot do the ga-ga goo-goo and am likely to do permanent damage on children just by glaring at them. Just the other day at a relative's place, a small boy was being naughty. I guess all small boys (and girls) are like that. We were waiting for the kids to finish eating so the adults could start. This child was sucking on a small plastic water bottle and refusing to eat. I asked him to leave the bottle and eat. He shook his head, no. I asked again. He shook his head more violently. He was sucking on the bottle so hard it was creating a suction. I tapped the bottom of the bottle. The rim must have hit his lip or mouth because the next moment, he had thrown away the bottle and tears flooded his eyes. Thankfully there was no cut or anything and I never meant to hurt the boy. I spent the next half an hour making friends with him and playing with him. My daughters, who were there and watched me trying to soothe the boy with unbridled glee, told me I was evil.

2.   My house, my rules: I do not hold back, I tell the girls exactly what I think and why. I tell them when they look like a tree trunk or need to diet. I do not hesitate to let them know that their work lacks depth or sincerity. I have been known to scream at my daughters ( and even their friends) in public or elsewhere if I felt it necessary and I have never hesitated to discipline them or make them apologise for their mistakes. I am told that it is wrong. I have been told that I should sugar-coat my words for fear I may traumatise them but I do not think it necessary. See the cover photo? Yes, that's me in a mask frightening my girls and their friends! When the girls were younger, we often visited my in-laws who lived in another house over and on weekends.  Often, we got late returning and the girls would fall asleep in the car. I used to make them get up and climb the four storey stretch of stairs to reach our apartment. I would walk behind them and prod them to keep them moving up the steps. If I had not, they probably would have fallen asleep on the stairs! My daughters tell me that this has scarred them for life; to this date they cannot climb the stairs (especially at night) without thinking that someone would poke them from behind.

3.     I have no maternal feelings: My relationship with my own mother has always been iffy. She came over and helped me when the girls were new-born and I was struggling with diapers and feeding bottles and I am grateful for that but it is only recently that we have mellowed down enough to have an almost civil relationship with each other. Maybe it's because I have now entered my purple years and have come to a stage where I am not bothered by anything anyone says or does and do exactly as I please. But I have never had a role model to look up to or aspire to be. I was, like all mothers, inundated with advice and lectures and after a short span of time realised that I had no patience for it.  So I threw away the guidebook pretty early on.  My brand of parenting is, at best, described as dictatorial. I order, they obey.

4.     I have failed: I order they obey. Did I just say that? My daughters do anything but obey. They bend all the rules, they do not listen to a thing I say. They can argue the hind leg off a donkey. Take this example:

"Can I watch TV?"

"Don't you have exams? Go Study."

"Please , I have to watch my show".

"I said NO, why do you ask if you won't listen?"

"Only while having dinner"

"……"

"Please Ma, only half an hour."

After an hour, the TV is still on. One child sits at the dining table chewing a chapati in slow motion. The other is curled up on the sofa, eyes glued to the TV.

"Why is the TV still on? Didn't you say you would watch only while eating dinner?"

"I watched when I had my dinner, now Isha didi is having dinner!"

 I am an optimist. This is an obvious handicap while raising children in this competitive world. My girls are pretty so-so in studies, they manage to pass. Just about. And sometimes it is not even that. They do not play any games, they are not fond of any sport and generally lead unhealthy, in-active lives spent in front of some screen or the other. It's not that we did not try. We have been through dancing classes, singing classes, roller-skating, squash, piano lessons and what-not together. At the end of the day, you will only find them on the phone or on snap chat and even sending voice notes on Whattsapp. Even though ICSC looms round the corner, my daughter is seen more on Instagram than at her study table. We turn the wi-fi off, they sweet talk my sister-in-law (who stays opposite) to sharing her password. We confiscate their phone, they sneak them out of the cupboard. They lie for each other and cover up for each other except when they are fighting like wild cats. They eat an unhealthy diet of chocolates, chips and shortbread in the middle of the night and wonder why they are putting on weight! Yet, I believe in them. I think they will turn into normal, well-adjusted, happy, responsible adults. I still think they will follow their dreams and succeed although there is every indication that they might not even get admission into a college of their choice. Such is the blind optimism I have been cursed with.

This is why I have not been writing. This is why I told myself that I should never write a word on parenting ever again. But then I realised that probably there are other mothers like me who go running about with a glazed look in their eyes and wonder if everything they are living for or doing is wrong.

All I want to say is that it probably is, but don't worry. As long as you are yourself and doing the best you can, surely, everything will turn out right!

Are we raising insensitive children?

Today, in the Kolkata edition of The Telegraph, I came across a book review of a book called “The Good Indian’s Guide to Queue Jumping” by one V. Raghunathan. It has been published by Harper Collins, a renowned publishing house that is known to be fussy about the titles it publishes. Now I have not read the book (nor can I genuinely say that I want to) and I am certain Harper Collins has its reasons for publishing the book, but what caught my eye was the title of the book: “The Good Indian’s Guide to Queue Jumping.” Seriously?

But then it made me stop and think. Let’s face it, queue jumping is a malady that affects us Indians, all the time. Be it at the airport, the check-out line in the grocery store, the entrance to a movie hall, even at the cash counter at the nursing home, we all seem to have been afflicted with a strange case of “I want to be first.” I particularly remember a trip abroad in my teens. While the whole world waited in queue at Heathrow airport, this extra-large family of Indians tried to jump the queue and was firmly put back in place by the grim faced officials. I saw the disgust on their faces. And I saw them looking at all Indians with the same distaste. And I felt sad because I wanted to scream that “No, all Indians are NOT like that!” but no one would care. Times have thankfully changed however, nowadays when you go abroad somehow you will find even Indians lining up, mostly peacefully, some lesson has been learnt over the years, maybe some awareness has come in? However, I have seen this too that the same family that stands in queue everywhere in the world suddenly finds it impossible to stand in line in our own country… does it have something to do with the climate or the air? I wonder. Nowadays, again thankfully, people do speak up when someone breaks a queue. I, in fact very loudly complain. Often I am told, rather condescendingly, “oh, really, the line is there, why YOU go ahead,” as if that solves anything!!! But I am helpless to change anything if the others behind me will not speak up.

Are you wondering why I am suddenly ranting about queues today? Or what it has to do with parenting? It’s not just the queue business. It’s basic decency. Holding a door open so that it will not bang on the face of the person right behind you. Driving in your own lane so that the person next to you will not be inconvenienced, listening to music on earphones on a flight, refraining from talking loudly on the phone in a movie hall, keeping the cell phone mute in a theatre, talking softly in a hospital, smiling and saying thank you to the guy who helps you in the supermarket, refraining from littering the street or spitting on the road, saying please to the waiter who is serving you at the restaurant… there are so many things. Somehow we rarely, or never seem to inculcate these.

And why? Because the bottom line is that in general we do not care about the convenience/inconvenience of others, we live in utter disregard to the other person, oblivious to their requirements or rights. Yes, we are insensitive. Oh, you’re protesting, are you? I’m glad you are, I’m glad I am irritating you because this needs to change. And who can change this if not us and our children and their children after them? Now it’s all very well for us to tell our children all this, maybe they will listen to you and learn. But you know, experience has taught me children only learn what they see. So the next time you feel like jumping the queue just because you are in a hurry, stop. Your child is learning that it is okay to be selfish and self-centered. The next time your feel like swerving into someone’s lane just to get ahead three feet while completely blocking the car behind that wanted to go left, restrain yourself. The next time the driver honks for no reason, in fact, do tell him off. Just try to be sensitive. Try to think that the person in the line ahead of you is equally busy and in as much as a hurry as you are. Waiting will not be difficult. Learn patience, practice patience. And your child will learn it too. Through you.

Let’s raise sensitive children. Children who smile and say please and thank you and hold the door open and do not honk needlessly because an older person is exiting the car in front of them and that takes longer than usual. Let’s teach them that it is not okay to roll down the car window and throw that empty packet of chips, that it is not okay to play video games with a loud volume for it may disturb the person next to you, that it is not okay to scream and shout and run about in a restaurant. Let’s raise sensitive children, who will care, not only for themselves but for the people around them and hopefully some of it will rub off on their friends too. Only then will the world stop thinking of us as an insensitive population full of queue jumpers.

House Rules for teens

Ah okay, time I faced things as they are. I am a lousy mother. A serious parenting #fail. I never seem to have the house in order and my daughters spend most of their lives stuck behind a screen deaf (and blind) to my attempts at discipline. Sometimes, when for the hundredth time, I enter their room and ask them to shut the drawer, they stare at me like I have fallen from the sky. They have no idea it is meant to be shut. Obviously I have not been able to teach them anything!

I also believe it's never too late to start making amends. So, instead of beating myself up about my inability to discipline them, I have, as of today, developed a set of "House Rules" which will be prominently displayed in the girl's room so that they (and their friends) know the rules and cannot claim ignorance!  Wonder why I didn’t think of this before!

So here goes, this is what they have been given: (I'll let you know if it worked, as of now as I write this one girl is howling with laughter in the next room, she has no idea how dead serious I am!!)

HOUSE RULES

(My house, my rules. If you don't like them, find another place to stay)

1.      You have been given a room to live in. However that does not give you a right to convert it into a pig sty. Your parents will have right of entry into the room at any point of time and expect it to be kept clean. If the door is locked, you shall open the door as soon as a parent knocks. If the door is locked and a parent can hear you screaming, the parent has a right to break it open.

2.      The cupboards all have doors that close. Let's keep them that way. Shoes found outside the shoe cupboard can and may disappear and may not reappear in time for the next party or ever. 

3.      Books habitually do not jump in and out of shelves. Any book taken out of any shelf can and must be returned to its place when you are done with it. The same rule applies for DVDs, scissors, cello tape, nail-cutting equipment and the stapler, especially the kitchen scissors. 

4.      The washing machine will be turned on every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and occasionally on Sundays. Your mother will not touch wet stinky clothes that have been sweating in the bucket and you are responsible for washing the same and hanging it out to dry. It will continue to lie in the bucket and raise a stink till the needful is done by who-ever that stink belongs to.

5.      Meal times are known to everyone and are to be adhered to. Snacks are not a matter of right. Your parents are under no obligation to ensure that kebabs, bacon, sausages and chicken nuggets are permanently displayed in the freezer so you can eat them. Kindly ask for permission before gorging on such items.

6.      The refrigerator has a function and that is to preserve food. You do not open the door and stand there till icicles grow out of your nose. Nor do you eat all the ice in the freezer section. Cheese and chocolates are not bread or rice and do not form part of our staple diet, do not devour it as though it is.

7.      You ought to be old enough to know what purpose the bathrooms are used for. Kindly desist from taking your speakers and listening to music for two hours while you shower. Water is precious. So are the shampoos, conditioners and body washes that flow with it when you are bathing. When you exit the bathroom please ensure that it is dry, the toothpaste has been put away and all your odds and ends removed. Remember wet towels do not fly and hang themselves to dry, kindly do the needful to ensure that the damp towel gets some air.

8.      The iron is not a toy. As and when you feel the need to use the same kindly ensure that the appliance is switched off when you are done and do not keep a hot iron face down on the ironing board. There is a reason why the ironing board has a burnt chunk and you know what it is.

9.      Any items of yours (read shoes, slippers, bags, books, accessories) of any nature whatsoever must not be found in any room other than your own. If it is, you will be summoned to remove the same with immediate effect and no one cares that you are tired or sleeping. Whining will not help either.

10.  The television is for entertainment and the characters in your serials are not real. I do not care that you have to cry each time you seen that re-run of that serial just because the hot guy died. If it makes you cry, stop watching it. If it scares you, shut off the TV. Go read a book. Any use of this device should be limited but as I know you sneak in shows with meal times and have it on whenever I am not home, let me advise you on its use. You do not turn the cushion of the divan into a flat pastry by sitting on it. You do not eat on the sofa and wipe dirty hands on the upholstery. When TV viewing is over, especially when you have hear the car come in, kindly switch off the TV, the set–top box, the electric switch and the fan. Most importantly please remove personal effects like slippers and hairclips and brushes from the vicinity. Leaving them lying there will let people know you are watching TV when you have been pretending that you haven’t.

11.  The telephone has not been subscribed to with you in mind and it is not your birth-right. Please bear in mind that until you are old enough to earn and pay the bills, we are not under any obligation to ensure you get to chat with your friends. You have your own pre-paid cell-phones for a purpose, kindly use them. Top up is once a month and you know how much you will get.  Kindly be on notice that once the dying cordless phone's battery dies completely, we are under no obligation to get a new one. So it is in your interest to ensure that it stays in the cradle and does not walk around the house.

12.  Similarly, electricity bills are paid by us. Kindly desist from wasting the same by turning on every light and fan in every room you walk into and not turning it off when you leave. You talk about saving energy and the environment and conservation of natural resources; let's start by turning off all the unused devices in the house.

13.  The Wi-Fi is not supposed to be on for every minute that you are awake or asleep. To switch it on, kindly take express permission of either parent. You will specify the purpose for the same and used it for a limited period of time as granted permission for. Remember when you say you have to do research and spend all your time on FaceBook, Instagram and SnapChat, the Wi-Fi may be turned off without any warning.

14.  The maid is not here to make your life comfortable. You do not holler for a glass of water when you can jolly well help yourself. She does not have to fry you snacks or make you Maggi at the drop of a hat. Housework will not kill you and you do not become a servant if you help in household chores even when the maid is there. So make your own bed, dust your room, clean the dressing table and the study table. Believe me, you will feel better for it.

15.  You have only one job to do and you know what it is. You have to stand on your own feet. And be happy. Towards that end, your parents are doing everything possible to ensure you have a balanced, healthy life. All your indulgences, extra-curricular activities, socializing with friends, TV benefits, Wi-Fi use etc are designed for that purpose only. Obey the rules and your parents will also be happy. And do fit in your studies. You have a responsibility there and it is all yours as only you know exactly what you have to do: it is the only way to ensure a stress-free neighborhood.

Thank you for your attention. These rules are not absolute and may be amended, altered or added to by either parent at any point of time.

Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, tantrums, imitations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, consternation and suggestions should be directed elsewhere.

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