Me and Them.

                   Picking a side - how hard is it?! It is always  a struggle for me. At work, at home, you have to be with someone, be part of a group, stand with them so that they can stand with you too. I can’t and don’t want to be identified with others. I function better alone. And I hate that. This is not because I lack people’s skills, I think. I need my space, and my ways.  

                   Seeking good friendship was the biggest step I took recently.  Have you ever had the feeling, when you are with a group of people, of being not like them, and wondered what is wrong with you?  If the answer is yes then, Good, I am not alone. It can do a lot to you when you don’t feel ‘at home’ with anyone, be it friends or family. You feel special but at the same time, also like a weirdo.   

Yesterday when Ela was talking about her day (which we do every evening) she was telling me how her friend yelled at for a simple mistake. She had dropped her friend’s book and when she picked it up she touched the book and her chest only two times and not three.   

 (btw if you don’t know what I am   talking about….It is a thing we do in this country…when you drop something, especially a book, you need to feel sorry that you dropped it, you touch it and then touch your heart ideally 3 times and that's how you apologize to the book.)   

  This had upset her friend. She thought I would be on her side and be mad at her friend for her bossiness. Instead I was displeased with Ela, I said why did she even have to do something meaningless and silly like that, twice or thrice that didn’t matter. “If you drop something, all you need to do is pick it up,” I said to her. She looked at me for a few seconds and asked me,” Why do you have to be different? Everyone in school does it. Everyone in our family does it. Only you don’t!” She was not mad at her friend anymore. Her question left me frozen. I didn’t know what to tell her.

My dad told me once, when I was 14 or 15, that it is okay to want to be “different, to not to comply” but then everything that follows will also be different and you should be okay with that.  Now I know what he meant. 

How to change the world!

I belong to the ordinary working kind. All my days pretty much are the same. I wake up at six thirty, cook lunch for twenty thirty minutes, wake up my daughter (which takes approximately fifteen minutes), cajole her to finish her morning duties. I brush her teeth and bathe her( as cajolery fails miserably). I shout at the top of my lungs when she complains about how cold the water is or how I pour the water in her head without telling her first.

 It’s a battle field, the bathroom.

 Then comes the uniform… the id card that goes missing every single morning.

 My million runs to the kitchen to make something that could be called as “cooked.”

Next, is the struggle to make her eat breakfast, which is just a small portion of the lunch I just made for school.  I shout incessantly,  while I am in the shower too “finish your lunch…sorry breakfast”, “fill your water bottle”, “wear your shoes”  … (Here I must say this “ Thank god for Velcro!”)

The battle is not over, it is only relocated!

 We hop on the two wheeler and off to school. The traffic on the school road is something scarier as kids are in the scene too. Everyone is in a hurry,  and every grown up there including me violates road rules. Once I overtook a van from the left and the driver shouted at me angrily. It was a total embarrassment and the presence of my daughter made me feel  even more shameful. And there were times when I am affected by someone else’s mistake. It is a mayhem out there. The bad roads to the school infuriated me. It made me think about the country and the serious infra structure issues we have.

I wanted to put an end this routine of mine. 

Now I wake up at five thirty. The first thing I do is play 9x0 or VH1. I cook what I have learnt from the net, quick and easy recipes, that my daughter loves. I stopped giving her lunch in the morning, instead I give her something simple like scrambled eggs and milk or dosa.  

I made her a checklist too “My Day My Behavior!” The first question is “Did I wake up with a smile?” and the last is “Did I brush my teeth before bed?” just simple eight questions that she has to check every night. And at the end of each week I reward her if she gets all eight ticks. Rewards include visit to a park, mehendhi  or ice cream.  I didn’t have to shout no more.

And the road to school…wow! I could feel the wind now, something very simple but that which I didn’t feel before. The world is beautiful again. And I changed it by changing me. Yes this is an age old technique and we all must have heard this mentioned by some wise men , but this one actually works! It is true.  Still there are unpleasantness in home or on the road or at work but I would say my morning routine has improved my life a lot!

tHe jOy Of dOing nOthinG!

  The joy of doing nothing, that is what I want to give my eight year old daughter this summer.  Many things have changed because of technology, and parenting is one of them.  I don’t know if we are becoming stronger or weaker as a well - read-digitally- driven - group that knows everything about everything. Special summer classes are happening everywhere. Drawing, handwriting, water play, pottery, abacus, mental math, aqua yoga and the list continues.  For families with both the parents working and no grandparents at home, these classes function as day care though.

                              School starts from June, the new class teacher, the old friends who are in a different sections now, the heavy back packs (New? yeah, but still heavy!), the new rules  and the sudden expectations….the class tests and aftermath of it, the yearnings to get the class leader badge and the big disappointment of not getting it…kids go through a lot! It is not all torture but they do go through major changes at a very young age. It is merely the training we give them so that they become like us! I don’t think any adult can say that they are truly happy and content with their life.  Eleven months of school and serious learning , don’t they deserve just thirty days of craziness?

                        Kids of the new age can “do” but do they know to “think”? The best time of my childhood was the alone time I spent on the “mottamadi” making face creams for my dollies by mixing chalk powder and water, and the times I melted plastic spoons.  I built a tent with four blankets , as I did not have a room of my own, and read comics all day sitting inside undisturbed by my mom and my sisters.   

                          Self-reliance is rarely taught to kids these days. Leadership skills and team work are over emphasized in today’s society. Yes these special classes will teach them to lead a team, to function efficiently in a group but that is what happens in school time too.  I am just saying that kids should let  ‘be’  and that parents will be amazed to see what they could do.