My KIDS, My Teachers!! The valuable lessons i learnt as a parent!

Parenting is synonymous with loving, caring, nurturing, teaching/guiding/mentoring your kids, and, quite often, disciplining. Where exactly one ends, and the other follows is not clearly defined. Often, they intersect!

As kids, we are emotionally reliant on our parents but as we grow older, get married, have kids and assume the responsibilities of a parent, we automatically switch gears and go at breakneck speed towards what we perceive to be the reason of our existence - our role as parents.

After being a mother for almost 20 years of my life, I feel that I can look over my shoulder at the years gone by and analyze it somewhat dispassionately. For a change, I will focus only on the parenting lessons that I've learned unconsciously over the years by being a mother.

1. Selfless love-

Selflessness, thy name is Motherhood. The moment that little bundle is placed in your arms, you learn to love unconditionally, completely, and that process is so organic. It is not forced or brought upon; it just happens naturally. Your child's smile lifts up your spirits, his slightest discomfort causes you pain, and you devote yourself one hundred percent to be a good parent. Other relationships become secondary, other emotions take a backseat.

2. Lifelong commitment-

Parenting is not a stopgap arrangement. Once you have a child, your life revolves around him 24/7, 365 days until they are an adult. After that, it is hoping that you have raised them well and being peripherally involved in their lives. As adults, we must give them breathing space so they can live their lives without us, parents, trying to control their lives. Having kids taught me what it means to be completely committed to another person and standing by him/her through thick or thin.

3. Being a good person myself-

You can teach and preach as much as you can but ultimately a kid follows what he sees and hears at home. I tried following all the moral science lessons (telling the truth, respecting elders, not wasting food, just being thankful and appreciative in life, etc.) that I was busy drilling in my kids. He had to see me following the dictums, for him to believe in its veracity and strength. So, by default, I became a much better person.

4. Value of Money-

That's one lesson I definitely learned after having my babies. The extravagant splurges and indulgences gave way to planned spendings and diligent savings. From saving for their necessities to their comforts, for their health and education, we learned how irresponsible our lifestyle was before. Now no expense was indispensable nor any saving too much. Want v. need was a very valuable lesson learned.

5. Enjoying the simple joys of life-

Reading a book, buying a dress, watching movies, going on a vacation, all the stuff which gave an adrenalin high were pushed behind in the ladder of happiness. The top spot was clinched by that toothless smile of my newborn. His gurgles, his sweet indecipherable sounds, his cuddly little body, all gave an unimaginable sense of fulfillment. Watching him crawl, learn to speak, and discovering the walk of life, took me to the mountain of happiness. Family bonding took top priority. Whoever said ‘the best joys in life are free’ knew what he was talking about.

6. Respecting the people in my life-

-my husband, elders, family members, neighbours, house-help etc.
Bringing up a child is never an individual effort; it takes a village. Right from cementing my ties with my hubby to appreciating the support system in my life, parenting made me re-evaluate the relationships in my life. I remain thankful to all those who helped me in bringing up my children. Without them, I would have been lost and floundered.

7. Reliving my childhood-

Seeing your little replicas with facial resemblances, behaviour, quirks is an indescribable joy. That dimple, that hair, that birthmark etc. etc. all bring alive your childhood in a tangible way. The nostalgic inputs from your parents create a warm fuzzy feeling about the cherished childhood memories and you get to relive those precious times.


8. Understanding & Appreciating my own parents--


You only realise what your parents went through once you have your own child! From our self-obsessed teenage tantrums to the difficult young adult phase, we don’t stop to think how much we are hurting our parents. Our own journey as parents make us appreciate all that our parents did for us. We start valuing their role and their 'interference' becomes more acceptable as does their sound, sage advices.

9. Every child is unique-


Mr. Sharma's son scoring 99% in class 10th, to Mr. Gupta's daughter becoming a junior chess champion, to Mr XYZ's child excelling in one or the thing, we parents envy the achievements of other kids and secretly want our kids to ace it. We love to gloat and we love to show off. Such uncalled-for comparisons cause immense heartaches to kids who feel inadequate and unloved by their parents.
Even comparing siblings by pitting them against each other unwittingly can cause self-esteem issues. I consciously try not to ever do this.
I learned to value my children for the individuals that they are, and I find them no lesser or any greater than others of their age.

10. I don't own my kids-


Last but not the least, I learned from my teenage son that he has a mind of his own. He has his own likings, preferences, ambitions and thought-processes. Our kids are not us. They have a right to their life. 
We can guide them, counsel them and if going astray we can pull them up but, on an average day, and all other conditions being normal, we can't live their lives for them. They should be given independence of thoughts and actions to make informed choices and be given wings to fly wherever their capabilities take them. Bottom line is that I don't own them. I never will. I never did. No parent ever did.


So, with all the lessons learned gradually as a parent - some reluctantly, I must confess - I find parenting to be the most wholesome, rewarding, taxing yet exhilarating experience of my life. The best part of it is that it's on-going and dynamic.

Hungry kya? Why should the daughter-in-law be the last to eat?

The party was stretching way past midnight. The menfolk were on a high after gulping gallons of alcohol. Their women simpered around, preparing and serving various snacks as well as putting together an elaborate dinner. The kids were fed and sent to sleep. The ladies gossiped and giggled while assiduously cooking a feast for the privileged gender.

Richa, the newly wedded bride of the youngest son of the family yawned repeatedly, unable to stay awake or hungry anymore. She asked her MIL(mother-in-law) hesitantly to take leave after having her dinner. Wide, shocked stares and barely controlled gasps met her desire to eat before the men of the house. Richa's MIL was horrified and embarrassed by her daughter-in-law's blatant display of impropriety.

"Richa beta, how can you eat before Ajay? Also, Papaji, Chachaji, Tauji and Anil Bhaiyya have not eaten yet. You have to be awake to serve them properly! Why don't you eat some more cutlets?"

Richa groaned inwardly, no more ‘aloo’ please! She wanted the painstakingly prepared meal before hitting the bed. She had an early morning meeting and hours of toiling in the kitchen for today's dinner had tired her out. Now this irrational norm that women can't eat before the menfolk of the house was exasperating her.

She quietly went into the kitchen, rolled a kebab (not the aloo cutlet) into a chapati and started eating surreptitiously. The old Maharajin who had helped her prepare dinner asked her to hide in her bedroom lest her mum-in-law saw her. Richa tiptoed to her bedroom, feeling like a thief in her own house.

This is an unspoken but understood norm in Indian families. The women of the house, including the matriarch, either eat along with (if lucky enough) or after the men of the house but never 'before' the men. The 'bahu' is especially relegated into the role of a chef, a waiter and a cleaning lady after dinner is over. This sexist, chauvinistic practice is so ingrained in our psyche that we do nothing to break it. Well-educated women too perpetuate the 'males eating first' practise.

The reason behind this could be that in earlier times men went out to do hard physical labour, earnings were less, hence the best part of the meal went to them with the women eating the leftovers.

Linked to this practical explanation is the 'Annapurna' title bestowed upon housewives, who take it as their 'dharma' to feed everyone in their house before indulging themselves. Highly moralistic, sacrificing nature of Indian women never allows them to put their needs or desires before their hubby, kids and all the elders in the family. No wonder, they are left at the last rung of the ladder in the family hierarchy, ignored and hapless.

The innumerable 'nirjala' (without water) fasts that women keep all year round for the safety and well being of their family (read male members) is considered another feather in their well-adorned 'sanskaari' cap. The fasts are supposed to bring inner strength and sanyam (patience) to overcome one of mankind's 7 sins - Gluttony.

Women's kitty parties, fascination for chaat, sweets etc are always the butt of jokes. Raju Srivastava, the well-known comedian, did a successful stint on 'women eating chaat' for years and made an indecent amount of money mimicking the drooling ladies. Nothing very decent about it although everyone had an unapologetic hearty laugh.

Now, try making fun of a guy wanting a beer and KFC. 'Cool guy' - would most likely be his tag!

So ladies, eat, binge, gorge whatever you want and whenever you want, keeping your schedule and health in mind.

Don't wait for someone to ask you, Hungry kya??

Cheering the villains!

The latest Bollywood flick Kabir Singh has arrived thunderously, creating a lot of buzz. Interesting to see critics unanimously lambasting a movie so vociferously while the audience lapping it up hook, line and sinker, going by the money the said flick is minting each day.

Often the critics' opinion and the popular mood aren't in perfect sync but this level of discrepancy has never been witnessed before.
 How to decipher this skewed reaction of movie-going public?

Anti heroes have always fascinated the common public which is tied down by social norms and shackles of tradition and propriety. A little naughtiness, a streak of devilry always lurks inside the sane and sensible lot, waiting to find an outlet.

Cinema gives them that escape, that window to the bad, sinful world where there are no ramifications, no repercussions, no accountability, no punishment for deviants. All in the name of cinematic liberty!

In the past too, movies like Darr, Ranjhana etc have had the leading heroes portray the obsessive, slightly deranged lovers with aplomb. Nobody questioned the rights and wrongs. It was supposedly a mere screen character.

Recent flicks like Sanju, Kabir Khan etc celebrate debasement unabashedly. The anti-hero has now transformed into a full blown villain without an iota of culpability and redemption. If anything, they gloat over their misdeeds and the audience applauds this moral degeneration.

Is it the desensitisation of the society as a whole where nothing shocks us anymore, least of all the remake of a very successful sexist movie?

Or has the Indian audience become discerning enough to separate Bollywood stars from the characters they are portraying on the celluloid? When we clap for a Shahrukh, a Ranbir or a Shahid, is it them we are rooting for, their acting prowess or the deplorable characters they grant a legitimacy to by brilliantly enacting their part?

The women watching and enjoying Kabir Khan would cry foul if a guy like him with his crazed antics, comes within an inch of their periphery. Even if he is good looking enough, a rogue is a rogue! Period!


The predicament confronting the film critics who have to be politically correct and morally upright is whether to appreciate such movies for their impressive cinematic abilities or to condemn them for their blatant misogynistic overtones.

Either way, the current morbid fascination of the movie watching audience with a movie based on a flawed premise of intense love and its myriad facets reeks of disturbing trends in our acceptance level of all things dirty and dangerous.

Today it’s reel life, tomorrow it could be real life. And that would be the end of all things nice, civilised and humane.

Badla- the name spells it all!

Badla would be an engaging fare if you have not watched the original Spanish movie on Netflix. For others, it would be a definitive case of Deja-vu...seen it all, know it all, Yawn!

That said, the USP of Badla, as in most movies he stars in, is Amitabh. He is imposing, sharp, witty and overshadows the proceedings. He needed an able foil to his larger than life persona and is curiously let down by Tapsee Pannu, an otherwise talented actress.

In Badla, she is lacklustre and bland, with a flat voice in a role which required nuanced voice modulations to bring the complex character of Naina alive. Amrita Singh is loud and out of sync and the rest of the star cast is too insipid to merit a mention.

What praise should one lavish on the movie which by virtue of being an official remake has replicated scene by scene till the very end?! Hoping against hope to find some twist at the end, to give a zing to the predictable outcome, I was massively disappointed. Sujoy Ghosh, the director, has treaded the safe path of not messing with a successful movie. He has happily dispensed with originality, except switching the genders of the protagonists! As if that made any difference beyond getting Big B to unleash his genius on a drooling audience.

I recommend Badla to the lovers of whodunnit murder mysteries. Netflix loyalists can save their cash. Big B fans, you have a treat in store!

LAZY SUNDAYS AND MANIC MONDAYS-Breaking the Myth!

Lazy Sundays and Manic Mondays. It's supposed to work like that, right?

After a gruelling, non-stop working week, you’ll finally get to unwind on the weekends. Time to chill, put your feet up and bid adieu to work. A time to escape from the drudgery of daily life and find quality time to indulge in your passions. No shrill alarm bells to disturb your dreams, no anxiety to rush through the everyday routine, no fear of deadlines and targets. Just a laid back day, relaxed and reposed.

Unfortunately and unjustifiably, it doesn't work like that at all for the lady of the house. If anything, her workload increases exponentially during the weekends, especially on Sundays. She runs frenetically through the day squeezing into 24 hours countless hours of cooking, laundering, cleaning, socialising, running errands and winding up pending work. It is the longest day of the week for her. It's not a Lazy but a Crazy Sunday for her !

COOK N STEW
Sunday starts with prep and planning for the special goodies and delicacies to be cooked by the lady of the house. She has been given the honour to showcase her culinary expertise and she better be grateful! With mixed feelings, she marches into the kitchen after an elaborate tea drinking and newspaper reading ritual, dons her apron and starts rolling- from parathas to pancakes to pies- as per her dear family's pick. Each member has a different taste bud and her food needs to match each one of them in order to garner a good critique from them. Hubby dear likes a healthy, tummy-filling paratha, Pinky likes her smoothies, Chintu craves for a salami burger while Mummyji can only eat moong daal or oats due to the delicate state of her teeth and tummy. Dear old Papaji is permitted only pureed soups and fruits but hankers after puris; the almighty tussle between these two senior citizens in the house can provide amusement all day long. After hours of toiling, the only audible sound in praise of your food is a loud burp followed by an even louder gas leak. But, seriously...!

CLEANING QUEEN
Cleaning is a major activity on Sundays. Cook, then clean, supervise maids, then clean, prepare Chintu's class chart on vegetables, clean the mess, then help Pinky prepare her biology project, clean again. Mrs. Sharma, the next door neighbour, makes her mandatory pre-noon visits. You fabricate a smile and serve her snacks, bear her non-stop, senseless chatter and heave a sigh of relief after seeing her off. You groan inwardly and then clear the table again. It's mind boggling how many hours a woman has to spend just putting things in order and arranging stuff which her family systematically displaces with a birthright. Just when she thinks she's in for a welcome break, hubby dear wants a lemon tea and French fries with his TV show, so the head-chef marches into the kitchen and feels blessed when she's rewarded with a 'how sweet' remark by the man of the house. Mummyji is of course not so lenient with her plaudits. Why would she be, when she occupies the most powerful position in India after the Prime Minister?  Her word is law and pleasing her a Herculean task! So don't stress ladies, just do your bit and forget. Some women sensibly hire a full-time maid or cook to bail them out from the work overload, but Sundays can be tricky. Either the maid takes a random off or the cook is ill-equipped to prepare the elaborate menu your family is craving for. Invariably, you find yourself at the centre stage of your home front, multi-tasking at breakneck speed.

MUNCHING THE LUNCH
Sundays are meant for family outings, movies and dinners. Or so you thought! You prepare a 3 dish meal and the kids start craving for a cheese-burst pizza. They snigger at your painstakingly prepared aloo dum, paneer kofta and bhindi kalaunji. So you put your foot down and exhort them to eat healthily. After witnessing their pretence of eating your gourmet meal with a glum face, you start feeling guilty for subjecting them to such torture. Your mommy-heart melts and you let them off from the torture food camp and they rush to play Xbox or Playstation. I wonder how many virtual world Formula One champs and decorated soldiers inhabit thousands of homes across the world.

Post lunch, half of the family is slumped in the living room drowsily, so you tip-toe your way to the kitchen .... to clean of course! The kitchen is a mess, half the food lies untouched- too mundane for hubby, too spicy for kids, too bland for Papaji (he was served the doctor prescribed lauki and plain daal) and too oily (roll your eyes) for Mummyji. Now, really..!!

'WINDOWS' SHOPPING
Shopping for essentials, for kids, groceries et al has to be squeezed into the day because it's a non-work day after all ! The family sits in its swanky sedan, all decked up, ready to ransack the glitzy gizmos at the electronics store at the nearby hip mall. You stroll leisurely trying to decipher the difference between the lollipop and marshmallow variants of the latest android versions being explained to you by your son who treats you like an imbecile when it comes to all things electronics. After feigning a polite interest, you give up and sneak into a nearby accessory shop to have a closer look at the pretty fuchsia slingbag being displayed on an anorexic mannequin. You, of course, aren't planning to buy it but prefer loitering here than wasting time over marshmallows that you can't even eat. The difficult task is shooing away the persistent salesgirl hovering over you trying to hard sell the 'magenta'(roll your eyes again) bag to you. Distancing yourself from her, you beat a hasty retreat to find your missing family. Chinese cuisine is the safest choice for dinner because even Mummyji enjoys it. Finally, you think that you've got a reprieve from the day's drudgery. But did you really? Halfway into the meal you remember that Pinky's biology project still needs to be finished and decorated and you lose all your appetite. Coaxing all to finish their meals in a fast forward motion, you saunter out of the mall, notwithstanding the grumpy looks of the family members and ignore stoically the jibes of being 'unorganised.' After-all, you are the mommy and should possess an elephantine memory. It could be anything (from kids' homework, stationery item, uniform, special tasks, applications to household item) but a misplaced or 'just remembered ' item right before the week starts is as common as that mole or wart on your face, ubiquitous but ignored. No prizes for guessing as to who bears the brunt if anything goes awry in a typical Indian household. I emphasise Indian because nowhere in the world is the woman more seemingly revered (for all practical purposes) and also chastised (for the same practical purposes) as she is in India. I'm excluding here the regressive nations with their socio-religious dogmas, who treat women as second-grade citizens.

THE MORNING AFTER
Monday morning blues are typical. Reluctance to leave the bed, stampede in dressing up to leave for school or office. Rush hour and mayhem mark the beginning of another week. The lady of the house collects her scattered brains and the wet towels lying around to set in order the chaotic aftermath of the day gone by. Papaji laments the emptiness of the house while Mummyji reminisces how 'relaxing' (roll your eyes again, wider this time) Sunday was! Oh, come on !

It's ironic how Sundays are enjoyed by all but the backbone of the house - the housewife, the homemaker! She needs the stamina of a Goliath and Hulk combined, possess the culinary expertise of a master chef and the unfazed disposition of a Tibetan monk to run her house efficiently. What's noteworthy is that we women ourselves try our level best to attain that level of perfection. Despite all the drama and 'dancing to the tunes' of our family members, we feel content in our hearts and revel in their love and appreciation.

Therein lies the eternal dilemma of a woman - how much to resist and how far to cave in. Drawing the lines as to the liberties that can be taken from you is an individual choice but highly recommended if you wish to relish a very well-deserved, lazy, restful and rejuvenating Sunday. You've earned it ladies....BIG TIME!