Children Not Our Own

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 “You may give children your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”- Kahlil Gibran

 What a prophecy and how clairvoyant is Gibran! For, today’s youth have their own anarchy of dreams and fantasies, which defy comprehension. Regrettably, they have lost their ideals and gone far away from their moorings pursuing the mirage of their own make-believe thoughts and perceptions. Mesmerized by some bad movies and, growing in a no-holds-barred, ultra-tech world which preaches a neo-culture, the twenty-first century youth grows like shrubs in the wilderness not wanting others to tend their growth.

 Recently, two eight-year-old boys in Chennai staged their own kidnapping drama taking a cue from a movie they had seen. They did this because they did not digest the admonitions of their fathers over their erratic behavior. A twenty-three-year- old Pawan Varma from Delhi enacted a scene of kidnapping and demanded a ransom of Rs.5 lac from his father because the boy wanted to go to a picnic spot and he had no money.

 We have these disturbing trends going on for some time. Youngsters, yielding to their impulsive whims and fancies, resort to such extreme steps just to grab the attention of their parents and family members. The movies they watch, and sorts of strange and bizarre culture they are exposed to in the society convince them that they could turn their parents’ attention to them only through such extreme and abnormal means.

 Poor parents! Since they are always engaged to earn bread and butter for the family and satiate every essential need of their wards, they are left with no time to give proper attention to their children.  Pitifully, most parents find it hard to strike a balance between their work and personal lives. In fact, they don’t have chances to spend quality time with their wards who always feel an alien in their home.

 The advent of the nuclear family is always thought to be a safe haven for young couples as they have their long-felt luxury of privacy. That it has its own hazards too is known to them only after some time when their children start growing up. For, the nuclear family leaves no adequate support system for the kids. Lonely youngsters upset over the lack of parental attention and company resort to extreme actions like their own stage-managed kidnapping because they want to tell their parents that there exist a young soul at home who wish to be with his/her parents for at least some time a day and share their pains and pleasures. The education system too, with its antiquated curriculum, fails to shape the youth.

 Another reason, according to psychologists, that make children abnormal and defiant is the parents’ controlling. It is appreciable that parents always want the best for their children. Their expectation to see their kids grow as good and responsible citizens is also natural. However, in the name of controlling, some parents go overboard and cruelly punish their defiant children not knowing that it only affect their ward’s psyche. I know one of my relatives always brutally punish his 10-year-old son even for his small mistakes. He would strike the boy with anything he could lay his hands on: brooms, spoons, leather belts, and hairbrushes, et al, without knowing that such brutal punishment teaches only revenge to the boy.

 Nuclear family, parents’ controlling, bad movies and an emerging unpalatable culture in the society may be the reasons for making children defiant and delinquent. It is high time for parents and teachers to take cognizance of the malaise and find ways and means to cure them. Good communications between parents and children will always help ease bad situations since the kids have opportunities to open their minds either to the mother or the father. Parents should understand that kids, too, need their own space and can’t be forced. For their parts, kids need to be made to understand that parents are always for them.

 Gone are the days when we had ‘moral’ classes in schools where teachers taught us all the finer values and ideals of life. Since teachers were our role models then, we grew up as Good Samaritans avoiding all pitfalls of life. However, schools had since long transformed themselves from educational institutions into business concerns. They now stop with churning out children who are only academically brilliant, but morally fake.

 It is heartening to note that The Education Department in Tamil Nadu recently urged schools to pay more attention to students’ behavior and necessary corrective measures. They advised teachers not to stop with producing results, but work on strengthening the value system of the community by instilling values in students. Behavioral scientists say that the teacher is the core point. They should become the role-models for the students and integrate value education with classroom teaching.

 Will teachers or for that matter parent’s wake up to the new responsibilities imposed on them by a sudden and swift change in the behavioral patterns of students and prevent them from becoming moral bankrupts? That is really a ten million dollar question on which hinges the future of the Generation Y or Z.

Image courtesy: Google

Prayers Not Aladdin Lamps

Prayers, like breathing, are an integral part of human life. They are considered more sacred than hard work. Bereft of a scientific sentiment and a rationalist mind-set, people believe that prayers to the gods of their choices will bring to their doorsteps all comforts of life: health, wealth and a powerful status in society.

May be these are puritan prayers. But, amazingly, sinful souls also resort to prayers with a view to getting them pardoned from the misdeeds they commit in life. Prayer is thus considered Aladdin’s Lamp, the possession of which is frantically sought by every human soul.

Pathetically, prayers are always purpose-oriented, having specific demand-tags attached to them. Again, they are not a one-time affair and the god in question is continuously solicited by men either for getting more of what they already have or for retaining it.

Fear of losing comforts that are presumed to have been achieved through prayers always haunts men. Swami Adiswarananda aptly describes men’s predicament thus: “The healthy have the fear of disease, the wealthy of thieves and the robbers, the beautiful of the old age, the socially prominent of dishonor, the learned of rivals and the virtuous of scandal.”

Advent of money, coupled with the advancement of science and technology, makes the world a global village that offers droves of comforts to men. These are sought to be owned by the human tribe not through hard work but through prayers.

Prayers have now become gimmicks with the evolution of innumerable gods. Each caste or sub-caste has its own god. Families too have their own deities. Abodes of gods don’t stop with cities and villages. Every pavement or platform is now littered with a variety of small, petty and makeshift temples.

Gods in such temples are worshipped in many unique ways. Along with mass prayers, the rural gods are offered padayals [special food] which normally contain a sackful of goat meat and a bottle of arrack. People who feed their gods in this way promise more sacks and bottles if their prayers are heard and answered.

Conventional prayers of the above kind are always visible. Conversely, most of ‘have-all’ do not have faith in explicit prayers; theirs are implicit and silent. You cannot trace and decipher the gods to whom they pray. But everything – their requests and the god’s response-comes to light the moment these prayerists offer some gifts or presents to the gods of their choice, who had heard their prayers and responded favorably. The gift of a Tusker to the Guruvayoor Temple by one of the TamilNadu Chief Ministers is a case in point.

Today, in the name of religion, terrorism is unleashed but some disgruntled elements who, following the dictates of their leaders stage destructive activities in alien lands, causing the loss of thousands of human precious lives.

The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon without any compassion for the human lives involved in their operation, underscore the extent of the havoc one could cause if one’s senses are allowed to be controlled by fanatics. The world is thus exposed to violence and counter-violence.

Nothing goes wrong when a person offers prayers for his/her own development and family’s well-being. It is one of the natural traits of man, which compels him to place his self above all other things. But, dangers peep in when prayers are offered by the religious with an ulterior motive of getting political clout and command.

Today, mass prayers are resorted to for the purpose of showing the strength of a particular religion to the powers-that-be. Even now there are places in India where people belonging to a particular caste are not allowed to offer prayers in temples by the upper, high-class religious fanatics.

“I pray for nectar. If I cannot get the nectar, I shall not fall back upon ditch waters,” said Swami Vivekananda.

Here, in our country, bigots pray both for nectar and ditch water—nectar for them and ditch water for their rivals. Secularism can be said to have grown only when people begin praying for the whole humanity not for their own self-aggrandizement.

*

 [I got an insignia from the Delhi-based ‘Alive’ mag to enter into the world of writing when they chose to publish this post in their June, 2002 issue. Thus ‘Alive’ had initiated me into the realm of writing a decade ago and made me go the whole hog with my tryst with words, publishing, off and on, a host of my writes. Though this post had the privilege of having been set in fine-print, it now looks mediocre not reflecting the metamorphism my current writings are sporting. But, back then, I was nascent in the realm of writing, catching up with its ropes.]

Image courtesy: Alive mag

Till Death Do Us Part

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Whenever I see happy married couples and their ever-going-strong married life, I simply crack my head, wondering about the factors that sustain such marriages … factors that prevent the conjugal bliss from tumbling down into an abyss.

 Emotional compatibility [EC] is an ability to empathize with a partner’s emotion; level of caring, love and nurturing shown toward each partner. It is not a small matter to be brushed aside. In fact, EC is a far away moon to those partners who have no idea of the different levels of their emotional needs.

They say EC is the anchor that sustains marriages. Emotional compatible partners are like true friends, share their emotional needs and avoid cabin feelings.

 ‘Why did you hide such things from me? ‘What secrets you still have in your mind? ‘Don’t you have faith on me’, are some of the questions couples ask one another when he or she finally chooses to let out the truth lurking in her/his mind for long. This attitude of ‘not-willing to reveal untold truth’ happens only when the partners behave like strangers not having space for other’s emotional needs. Their attitude is naïve, for they think their only symbol of marriage is the mangalasutra the wife sporting around her neck.

 A husband or wife should be keen, look forward every opportunity to make a clean breast of untold truth lurking in their minds. A conscientious wife or husband will always feel bad if they have some grey areas hidden in his/her mind. They will come out with truth though they fear that such revealing may bring havoc to their conjugal bliss. They also know that on what ground their marriage stand and would readily spill the beans. And there lies the ‘Success Quotient’ for a happy marriage.

 Conversely, if a husband or wife starts hiding something from each other because it would create a holocaust in the home, the partners, then, are not doing anything conducive to the smooth going of their marriage. Theirs is only a fake or pretentious living. The fact that they are not truthful to each other ultimately put their married life in a furnace.

 One of my friends told his wife about the physical contact he had with a woman when he was in his late twenties. It was not a big matter for the husband to open up his mind to her. For, emboldened by the harmonious relationship he was having with his wife, he chose to share the long buried secret in his mind. However, what mattered was his wife’s response to such an honest confession. I asked her [she was very outspoken; would always call a spade a spade] about her response to her husband’s sharing with her a bitter truth—I was a bit curious. She looked through me, smiled and said:

 “Err is human. It is quite common that hormones play games with the youngsters when they are in a vulnerable age and make them to do what they don’t want to. Even exposures from media and internet add to the woes of the youngsters and make them go ashtray. That my husband had a fall in his twenties and became a bit askew then should not be taken into account for deciding his trait or character. It is his confidence in me that made him to show a black spot on his otherwise clean premarital life. The emotional attachment we have for each other did exhort him to show the chinks in his past life. It happened because he thought there should be no secrets between us. So, I accepted him as he is and my love for him grew up immensely after his confession.”

 I now saw my friend’s face gleaming, eyes reflecting the real joy of his marriage. Kudos to his wife! She understood his spouse well and her attitude and emotional levels only made him to reveal a hidden truth.

 Here no one compelled the husband, not even his wife, to let out the untold things or talk about a blunder he had committed when he was in his mid-twenties. But then, the harmonious ambiance prevailing in his home and having an understanding woman for a wife, he was able to reveal a thing that had been torturing his mind for long.

 Again, if his wife had nagged him to tell her about the things he hadn’t told her before, the husband, by every chance, would have kept mum. Successful marriages will never find couples spying on each other or trying to find holes on each other’s behavior.

As I said earlier, emotionally attached couples easily identify hurdles to their conjugal bliss and stay clear of them lest they sink their marriage boats in the ocean of misunderstanding.

 The factors that give fillip to the conjugal bliss and  make one’s married life an elixir are lying in small gestures and deportment like, husband and wife watching movies together like true friends, going to comedy shows and talking about the show and laughing together. Sometimes, holding one’s hand brings a feeling of oneness and tranquility to the other. Whenever my wife starts holding my hand, I feel like she is telling me, ‘I love you; live for you’

 These are simple secrets that go a long way in making a marriage more meaningful not a Greek tragedy.

Image courtesy: Google

  

Art of Luring

The new flat we recently moved in was not the marvel of the new-age construction, but was a self-contained one far better than the ‘hovel’ we lived in before. My grandma was all smiles. She was excited to see the big, spacious Puja room. She said: ‘Eswar, it looks godly, having an aura of Divinity’. In no time she began arranging things in the Puja room, decking up the walls with framed photographs of many Hindu gods.

That she was not able to feed the crows in the new flat as she did in our old house made grandma a bit sad. A Pucca conservative Hindu woman who steadfastly follows ‘sastras and sampradayas’, she would invariably offer the first scoop of rice to the crows as soon as she finishes her morning Puja. She would partake of her food only after feeding the darkies.

She would always tell me that feeding the crows is like feeding our pithrus [ancestors] whose manes the birds represent.

The kitchen grill in our old house had an open and shut door. Grandma, keeping open the door all through the day, would feed the crows with something or the other: balls of rice, pieces of chapati, idlies and dosas. Never a day went without her feeding the birds which would line up the windowsill when she opened the kitchen window early in the morning.

Grandma grimaced when she could not feed the darkies in the new flat. For, the kitchen grill here was closed with sun mica glasses not having an open and shut door. The kitchen too had only a faint gleam of light reflected from the sun mica glasses.

She was bewildered when my neighbor told her that one had to go to the terrace to feed the crows. The terrace was three stairs away with steep steps and without banister. With arthritis-ridden knees functioning symbolically, there was no way of grandma climbing up the stairs to the terrace daily to feed the crows.

So, it became necessary for me to hire a carpenter to cut and remove the sun mica glasses and put up a makeshift wire mesh across the window grill so that grandma could lift the net and feed the birds whenever she wanted. My euphoria of being a tad smart in opening a new and innovative way for grandma to carry on her daily ritual was only short-lived. For, not even a single crow came to our windowsill, not to speak of their looking at the rice ball grandma offered them with utmost reverence and respect. To her dismay, the crows flew in fleets outside out kitchen window, ignoring her offerings.

The little psychoanalyst in me soon discovered that the crows had no flair for rice and dhal since they were getting mounds of them from every household in our area. I then brought into action all my tactical and Machiavellian skills; decided to offer the crows some crumbs to lure them to our kitchen windowsill. Of course, I did it on the sly since grandma never liked to pamper the birds with costly food stuffs other than rice balls.

Viola! The moment I placed a piece of a cake on the sill, I saw a throng of crows flying down to our kitchen window and picking up my new offerings with a flourish. Grandma was stunned when she saw a troupe of crows lining up on the window sill. She couldn’t believe her eyes, but was happy as if she got manna from heaven.

However, the darkies became rogues and refused to take the rice ball offered by grandma after they had tasted crumbs. ‘Easwar, why don’t they take rice balls?’ grandma muttered mawkishly. ‘Look, grandma’, I tried to console her. ‘They’re always munching on rice and dhal. Maybe, they like a variety of food. Why don’t you give them biscuits or bread?’ ‘No … no,’ she retorted. ‘It’s against Manu Dharma. Crows are our ancestors. We should give them the same ‘padayal’ [offering] which we offer to our gods.’

Soon, the responsibility of feeding the darkies fell on me as grandma was disgusted with them. Fortunately, the dark winged creatures and I became friends. They now started behaving themselves and feeding on the rice balls I offered them. Grandma became curious.’ Why, Easwar? Why they don’t like feeding from my hands? I do offer them the same rice ball as you do. And what magic you do to make them behave?’ she quipped and went away.

There is no secret or magic behind what I did. My friends and I are only mundane creatures. Since we don’t know anything about Manu Dharma, we oblige each other—they come to the window frame hearing the Puja bell and on my part I offer them rice balls coated with crumbs or jaggery. It’s a case of ‘you scratch my back and I do yours’ … a sort of win-win game.

My friends, I hope, would never betray me. For I always saw them cleaning up the rice balls without leaving any trace of their feed being mixed with extraneous things. Nowadays, they are more adept at hoodwinking grandma than me, their master.

Image courtesy: Google

Back to Square One

I had been, quite often, the victim of defaulted and heated Auto Fare meters. For taking me from the Central Railway Station to Egmore Railway Station, the distance being less than 2 km, an auto-driver had once fleeced me for a hefty amount. I was then a novice to the metro. To justify the exorbitant rate, the driver went through remote streets and an alley, made several ‘U’ turns and detours before dropping me at my destination.

Impolite and rude behavior, demanding unreasonable fares from the gullible passengers even for short trips, badmouthing them in the metro slang during journeys and above all abject violation of traffic rules were always synonymous with some rogue auto-drivers. I don’t, however, imply that all auto-drivers are unscrupulous, since the majority do their job in a professional and honest way.

But that was a month ago. Well, a lot of water has flowed into the Cooum River [the urban river of Chennai is now one of the dirtiest water bodies in the metro] since then. The spectacle I witnessed yesterday while travelling in an auto left me agape with wonder and bewilderment. Amazingly, the vehicle went along swiftly, but smoothly as the driver, conscious of my comfort, drove his auto carefully, avoiding the speed bumps, potholes, and heaps of sand and gravel placed at the sides of the road.

I was surprised when I glanced around my seat. It was clean and tidy. I got a whiff of scent. The driver must have sprayed some perfume, I thought. Hal-a-dozen water bottles were stuffed in a makeshift rack behind the passenger seat. The FM radio was on, but it wasn’t blaring as it used to be in the majority of the other autos. It played softly; pleasing to the ear. Hanging from the door frame was a pouch full of complimentary tissue paper.

‘Feeling thirsty, sir? Like to have tender coconut or coffee? I’ll take you to a good kiosk on the way.’ The driver spoke good English. He smiled too. I didn’t answer him since I was in a trance unable to piece together the reasons behind the sudden change in the machine and the man.

‘Who brought such a perceptible metamorphosis in these ‘moving tyrannies? When did this phenomenon take place? Is it a reality or am I dreaming?’ Volley of thoughts swarmed me as I was sitting speechless. ‘Your destination, sir’, the driver stirred me out of my dream. I got down; he checked the meter and told me the fare. It was only twenty rupees. I stood dumb-stuck thinking how many times I had paid 80 rupees to drivers for the same distance.

After settling the fare, I still stood unmoved, staring at the driver and thinking how anacondas could suddenly become earth worms. Reading my mind, the driver pitched in again. ‘I know what’re you thinking, sir.’ He said with an ingratiating smile. ‘Yes, we’re now a changed lot as we had undergone a training programme. A Good Samaritan college took some of us to their campus recently and taught us spoken English and etiquette; we were also imparted how to interact pleasantly with the passengers. A week’s training there completely changed us from quarreling and fleecing fellows to persons of exemplary manners. Before long, you’ll see all the auto-wallahs a refined and reformed lot.’

I felt extremely happy and shook hands with the driver. ‘Your makeover is the 8^th wonder of the world. My thanks to those persons who fine tuned you? Every auto driver needs to realize that he is part of a service industry and any form of misbehavior will reflect badly on the image of his tribe." I commented, moving away from the driver.

Dissipated was my enthusiasm when I learned, after a few days, that all the fine tuned auto-wallahs were compelled to become autocrats once again. The Vetal [Betaal] has since disentangled himself from the King Vikrama’s back and flew back to the tree. Campus training for a host of auto drivers was stopped abruptly due to the intervention of one or two Auto Unions. They scuttled such a praiseworthy project assuming that people who were used to ride those ‘civilized’ autos would avoid travelling in other autos which, by all means, would trigger a down-slide in their daily collections.

It’s a piquant situation and prompted me to think about what China commented about the functioning of Indian democracy: “Why does India’s democracy fail to bring more effective rule of law but instead allows the worst facets of traditions to flourish and thus severely restricts India’s modernization to this day. This is a question that deserves thought from the Indian elite.”

Image courtesy: Google.

Mukund a.k.a Gratitude

Mukund was one of my best friends—we had been studying together in a private school for five years until we wrote our Board exams. Unfortunately, my classmates called him as ‘Dabba Mukund’. I felt bad whenever I heard some one called him by his sobriquet. It was object poverty and financial crunch that gave such an appellation to Mukund.

It always happened like this during lunch recess on all school working day—a tragic sight indeed. Mukund, with his frayed trouser, creased shirt and unkempt hair, would stay put in Mr. Angan’s room [he was our English teacher] to get his quote of a lunch dabba[dabba: usually a cylindrical tin or aluminum container] from the teacher. Mr. Angan, a kind-hearted, empathetic soul, would always bring from home a dozen of lunch dabbas and distribute them to the poor students who came from the nearby slum.

Mr. Angan was a hefty man with a big, twirly mustache and thickset whiskers. But, he was humane; a Good Samaritan. The teacher did not stop with supplying a lunch dabba to Mukund every day. He would take pains to visit Mukund’s slum, meet his parents and exhort them to continue to toil for Mukund’s future. The teacher took extra care in grooming the boy as he saw in him best potentialities of achieving great feats in life.

“A poor boy. How studiously Mukund pursues his studies with grit and determination not succumbing to the pangs of hunger and the taunts of his classmates,” Mr. Angan would always speak high of my friend in the classroom without mincing words.

Mukund would always keep himself aloof from other students. However, he liked me most and shared with me all his thoughts and feelings. He said to me once:

“Easwar, I know some students call me Dabba Mukund. True, it hurts me. But, being poor, I have no option but to carry the cross. My parents are only coolies and most of the day we’ve gruel for our lunch; he paused, looked at the sky and then continued. “But for Angan sir I would have, by this time, died of hunger. God save him and his family. Yes, right now I’m concerned only with my studies and I don’t give a damn to how I’m called.”

The final examination was over and it was time for us to leave the school. We had a farewell meet in the classroom. There were fun and laughter all around. Mukund became the butt of students’ taunts.

A boy, he too was a slum dweller, came over to Mukund and stared at him in the face. He then bloated: “All these years you got a free lunch from Angan sir. Will you at least return the empty dabbas to him? What are you going to do for the teacher from whose lunch boxes you’d grown like a guinea pig?” The class went into raptures. Mukund was sitting unmoved; not minding the sarcasm thrown at him like missiles. Though Mukund took the taunts in his stride, I could see his tear-choked eyes, which he tried to hide away from me.

We then parted, wishing each other good luck. Unfortunately, I had, in the hustle and bustle of life completely forgotten Mukund. It was over ten years I met Mukund and that too on his wedding day. He was now a software engineer, had grown in status. A week before his wedding, he called me over the phone and invited me to his wedding. When I was a bit confused about the identity of the caller, Mukund laughed and said: ‘Easwar, don’t you know me? I’m Mukund … Dabba Mukund.’  With so many other things to occupy my mind, I had not given Mukund a thought for years; but now, with a little shock, I remembered.

 Mr. Angan greeted me with folded hands when I reached the marriage hall. The teacher was now thin; his big, swirly mustache shrunk and went gray. Mukund ran over to me helter-skelter, when he saw me talking to Angan sir and shook hands with me rather passionately. He was in a groom’s attire, sporting rose flower garlands around his neck. He had now grown tall, a bit sturdier. His eyes were gleaming now and they were no longer somber as they did during his school days.

The Bride came when Mukund and I were talking about our old days. But to my shock, she was limping her way through the aisle of the marriage hall. I knew later that she was the victim of childhood polio that had completely ruined her left leg. Mukund called her by his side and said: ‘Easwar, she is Anjali, Mr. Angan’s daughter.’

A pleasant surprise swept me off my feet. I was excited, stood dumbfounded. I was still staring at Mukund with all the reverence at my command as if he was an Angel. “I’m proud of you, Mukund. You’ve done an excellent job … a humane act.” I fumbled for words, shook hands with Mukund again. Overwhelmed with emotions, I felt my eyes became moist.

“That’s what we call gratitude. Mukund, it needs a mind of gold to give life to a physically challenged girl. Marrying Angan sir’s daughter is more than what you got from him.” I hugged my friend.

Mukund blushed. Taking the Bride’s hands in his, he said: ‘I’m always conscious that I had grown only out of Angan sir’s dabbas. The help and support I got from him cannot be repayable. I remain indebted to him until I breathe my last. You told me about gratitude, yes … slum dogs are more grateful than those living in palaces.’

‘Great! Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul’, I thought while taking leave of Mukund and his wife.

Image courtesy: Google