What’s It - Play ?

 It was Nelson, who as a child asked – What is the thing called fear?  Our children may not ask the same question, But the question they may well ask is – What is the thing called  play ?

As it is,  children are being deprived of wide open spaces, where they could have had fun and games.

With concrete jungles springing around everywhere, and living space becoming more and more cramped, there is hardly space  left for children to go wild.  To make matters worse, the child has no place to play in, neither has he the time.

Loaded with books, over-burdened with lessons, and taxed with homework, the child feels he has bit off more than he can chew.  And all the while that he is made to mug up a lot of relevant and irrelevant matter, the precious years of life, the El Dorado of childhood keeps slipping away, till it will be too late to lock the stable after the  horse has run.  What a raw deal for the poor kids.

The whole system of education, especially education needs a radical overhauling.  A shifting of chaff from the grain.  Poor Madame Montessori, would have a thousand fits, if she could see the mess that prevails in primary education.

The present system does very little to develop a chi8ld’s flair and individual capabilities. 

Right from the primary stage, education should be more aptitude – oriented.  What we have on the other hand, is a stock-in-trade education, a dreary drill of repetitive lessons, where the child is not given any scope for individual initiative  and expression.  Parrot wise the child repeats what is taught.

With or without comprehension, so long as the child answers the questions, the teacher is satisfied.  Lessons are memorised for the ultimate end- the examination marks.  It is a hell-for –leather grind, and the alpha and omega of it , the examinations.  In the vicious circle , if the child has a penchant towards any particular art or field, it gets atrophied.

In the competitive world, even the K.G. class examinations( Oh God, examinations for a K.G. class ) are prestige issues for the parents.  The parent, whose child betters the marks got by the neighbour’s kid, is as pleased as punch.

It is one up on the Joneses ! Between the teacher and the parent , the child is caught between Scylla and Charybdis.  The tragedy of it is, the child doesn’t even know, what he is missing.  The glorious days of childhood , where open nature and a free mind, would be a far better book for the child, t6han any printed book.

Even as I write , I hear my little daughter laboriously spelling out the words – atmospheric pressure, sure it is pressure, pressure on the child’s mind. By the time she has got it right, she is almost in tears, I wonder if Hercules, would not have failed, had he been set the difficult task of learning what a legislative assembly and a democratic government is, in St. 111.

So in airless, stuffy classrooms, the child who should be running with the wind in his face, and chasing wisps in the air, bends over his books.  If he isn’t quick on the uptake, he gets caned into the bargain , by the impatient teacher.  As if all this weren’t enough, to heap coals on fire, the child is set a heavy load of homework.

And parents who thought they had finished with education for good and all, are back on the band wagon.  For home work , is for the child, and for the parent too.  If a quarter of the teaching job  is done by the teacher, the rest of it is passed on to the parent’s shoulders. Staggering under a load of books in the hand, and lessons in his head, the child who goes to school , dare not tarry, to watch a bird on the wing, or a flower in the hedge.  The child who walks to the claustrophobic confines of the pent-house school , also walks away from childhood that is lost to him. 

Constant dripping wears the stone’.  Too much pressures on young minds will wear them too.  Like the Aegean Stables, our educational system needs a thorough cleansing. When   shall the task begin?

Somebody's Daughter

My son will be getting married soon, and we are excited over the coming event.  But in my case, is there also some trepidation, along with the excitement?  A strange girl, somebody’s daughter, is going to come into my house, be a part of our lives, of our household.  But somewhere in my mind, there are some reservations, some rejections, even a twinge of jealousy, or fear, or prejudice.  Do they all combine to put up a fence?  I will accept her as my son’s wife, but will I accept her as my daughter?  Or will I draw a line at that?

What was about a son being your son, till he got himself a wife?  Will my son, who is going to be hitched to a wife soon, become alienated from us, creating an island for himself and his wife?  Will I find I am pushed to the periphery?  Will this girl put a spoke in the wheel of our kinship?   Will she be an unknown quantity, a disintegrating factor?  Get thee behind me satan – perish the thought.

Yet come to think about it how will she adjust to our home, our family, our routine, our way of life?  Will she keep comparing things, to how it is in her home?  Compare me to her mother? Think her mother is an Angel, and I a witch?  And how do we start building a rapport!  Like we all sit down for  breakfast, and I pass her the jam   and say, “I hope you like jam, My son, you know, has a sweet tooth”. And she smiles, as sweetly  as the jam, but inwardly she fumes- what the heck? Does the woman feel I should like all the things her son does?  And my mother makes better jam anyway.

Like two kids in a kindergarten, will we quietly take each other’s measure, wanting to be friends, but not knowing how, or like a cat and a dog, will we be wary of each other?  Can I receive this girl, who is somebody’s daughter and is going to cross my threshold, with open arms?  Anyway, never being a demonstrative person maybe literally I won’t, and figuratively I can’t.  And on the other side of the side of the fence, how will she feel, how will she react?  Does she have nightmares thinking of me as a witch with a broom?If I am putting up a mental block against her , is she, in turn, doing likewise?  So that on the wedding day, we smile, but face each other like gladiators in a ring?  I ponder over the shape of things to come, and wonder which way the wind will blow in the days to come when this strange girl who is somebody’s daughter enters my home.

Then, suddenly like a flash across my inward eye, the cobweb is removed.  That was the stumbling block.  That expression that had coalesced in my mind like a cancer.  Somebody’s daughter.  Maybe.  But as my son’s wife, my daughter as well.  The equation was as simple as that.  Not an outsider but an insider.  Not a stranger, but a kin.  Sure enough, there may be adjustments to  be made, priorities to be settled.  But no cause for us to lock our horns in battle.  Now I know, I’ll smile on the wedding day – a smile that is straight from the heart.  Nor will my nails be velvet claws when I welcome this girl into our hearth and home.

Vignettes Here And There

Years at a time pass by’ between the whiles,that we never forget”. Not an original observation that I read it somewhere. But , when I look back, I see the truth in those lines. For it is some of the inconsequential things that, like lichens on a rock, forms vignettes in my mind.

My first school. The Goodwill Girls School in Bangalore. It is not the building , not the teachers, but a stone bench inside a barbed wire fence and I eating some dry lunch (cutlets)? On some day, that somehow lurks in my mind. Then the St Josephs School in Bangalore. I just remember my class was in a corner , standing on the bench was degrading, and textbooks were so smooth, so well printed. Kamala Bais ( I had a nomadic school life). The stone-walled grey building, the green stretch of lawn, overlooking a lake, the red school buses, and the poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’. And , of course the Sacred Heart School in Tellicherry. The gang of friends, rushing up and down, getting red as a berry on the school ground., the anxiety and excitements over competitions and exams.. Exchanging gooseberries for Jesus pictures; agh, gooseberries secreted away inside petticoats, who cared for perspiration!

Why do I remember , a black and white crepe satin frock? And why do I remember a certain long stemmed white flower, that blossomed on tall trees. I haven’t seen that particular kind of flower since, but should I do so, I’ll pick it up with nostalgia!. Talking of flowers , I remember a jasmine bower in a friend’s house, which was on my way to school. The stone flagged walk would be wet with the morning dampness, and the tiny white flowers that bloomed in profusion, gave forth such a heady fragrance, that in retrospect, I can almost smell it.

I remember as a child , sitting on the broad bay window, making a game of guessing from which side a vehicle would come first. Simple games. There was too, a game with cigarette packets. The thing was to throw a piece of stone, in such a way as to push the packets out of the circle encompassing them. The one who succeeded in pushing out the most number, won. Does no child play such games any longer? No they don’t. For it is the age of electronics and TV and video games. So that even hop scotch and I spy is a forgotten game, and it is Barbie dolls for ,the richer kids. But I think no child with a Barbie doll , ever has
the fun and the attachment that I had to my little wooden doll. A stiff little thing, who did not have eyes that closed or hair that curled nor limbs that moved. But now when I look back, it was to me a treasure, that gave me a world of pleasure, though it was an unpretentious thing.. I think nowadays there are no such cute wooden dolls.

And teenage, and tantrums. When one day you were on top of the world because you thought you were in love, as no one had ever been before and it was laughter and roses all the way. But the next day you were out of love, because, he stuck out his tongue at you and you saw he had pimples, and it was all thorns and nettles all the way. The whole world was with you one day, against you the next. One day you wanted to die-die-die because it was a hateful world. The next day you wanted to live a hundred years and more, because the world was right as rain! Oh those teenage years of uncertainty, unlike the teenagers of
today who are so cock sure of their ground.

And the I married, well may be not the knight in shining armour, but the one I was fated to and with maturity the realization came, that the stuff of dreams, is not the stuff of reality. But it is the later, that counts. And so it is, that the years have slipped by wearing the warp and the woof of my sojourn. And along the way, the children grew up, and struck out on their own, and one by one, I had to let them go. From their childhood days, I can remember stray incidents, stray happenings, stray remarks. Like the son ,who took a long time to weaned, and when refused the breast made the classic discovery “Mummy you have two! But now it seems to me, they have grown up all too soon. Was it aeons ago, that they asked me questions. “Why does the bird have wings, and cow has not? Why does a rose not grow on a mango tree? Why is the rat smaller than a cat? And the children round the tea table , and my elder son asking the key question. ‘For one man how many?’ (Meaning how many snacks, he could help himself to.)

I see the carom board that resounded, staying forgotten, and the hockey stick in a corner. I remember the days, of their , childhood; were the days of our glory! When the boys or girls were playing in tournaments, how avidly we read the news to see, if their teams had won. And when they put in a goal or basketed a score, we went over the moon! Now it is not the playground for them, but the battlefield of life.

There is one fledgeling left, and when she too will have fled , what will remain for us? Memories that lurk within these walls? Will we face a winter of loneliness, or in yearned for re-unions when they come back to us now and again, with their own children, find the old forgotten threads, to weave again, a new tapestry in our lives? Till one day we find an answer to that unfathomed question – quo vadis?

The Writing On The Wall

Today I was combing my hair when suddenly my heart turned turtle, and the comb slipped from my hands.  This is it’, I thought in panic, ‘the end of my world.This is Nemesis.  There won’t be any more fun to be had out of life”.Guess what happened?  I had found my first white hair.  No, not grey not auburn or golden, or even pepper and salt.  But white, plain, stark, staring white.   I tugged at it, like I would tug at a weed in a garden.  It came away.  But lying in my hand it seemed to mock at me. 

I could see the writing on the wall and knew without a shadow of doubt, that this wasn’t the end.  This was only the beginning.  Like the Biblical cloud no9 bigger than a man’s hand that had grown into a swarm of locusts, that one white strand presaged the shape of things to come.
I had plucked out one white hair.  But that didn’t mean victory would be mine.  No I knew it would be a losing battle, inexorably, inevitably, others would follow.. The trend had been set.  My knees gave way.  I sat down with a sigh.  That night I dreamt that all my hair was whiter than white, and my family shut the door in my face.  They took me to be a stranger.  Even my dog barked, and tried to bite me. 
Come to think of it, have you noticed, the whole world is out to get your age.  It is on your driving license, your insurance policy, your ration card.  Apply for a job, they want your age, enter a contest, state your age. Seek admission somewhere, give your age.
When one is young, and birthdays are fun, one does not draw any lines about proclaiming, one’s age.  But when youth is a memory, and birthdays are nightmares, it isn’t quite as nice celebrating birthdays or telling the world at large how old one is.There are some true sayings that are so much poppycock.  Take that one! Life begins at forty, or, you are not as old as you are, but as young as you feel.  Life beginning at forty?  Bunkum, tommy-rot, sheer baloney.  Age does not wither etc, may have been alright for Cleopatra, maybe it is all right for Liz Taylor and Jackie Kennedy, but not for the lay woman.
Some wise guy quipped that forty may be the old age of youth but it is the youth of old age.  Like hell it is.  He must have been talking through his hat.  Why, even at thirty, you are getting old, done for, finished.  By the time you are forty, the lid is on tight and secure on the days of your youth and your glory.  The world is no more your oyster.
Am I blowing my top?  It is high time I did.  For there are double standards in the matter of age between man and woman.  The former is young at fifty, even at sixty, maybe even at seventy.  Even at eighty he may yet wink at a girl, and get away with it.  But let a forty, nay a thirty-year old woman wink at a man, they will think she is off her rocker.  Any wonder then that a woman will lie like a trooper and jump through loops to cover her age.
Anyway, one thing I know, I am going to wink at them all, right, left and centre, before all my hair turns grey.  There may not be any takers, but what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander too.  If a sucker in his dotage can wink at a girl in her teens, what is to prevent me from winking at them , whether they be young enough to be my sons, and like it or not.  At least, it is one way of getting even with the blighters who think there are no rules to the game when the innings is theirs.  That in their camp, youth is elastic.  But in ours, a woman past her prime is something for the scrap heap.

The Home – coming

Today she is coming home, the first time after the wedding.  My daughter and her husband.  Should I have said my daughter , and my son(in-law)?

But just at first ,it all seems so strange to me.  I must get used  to thinking of him as a son. The fact has yet got to register.

The wedding was over, just a couple of days ago, and the aftermath of the occasion, is still felt, and seen , around the house.  It is there, in the tang of the freshly painted doors and windows, the polished furniture, and the curtains and cushions that are crisply new.  Someone has spilled a little p0erfume somewhere, and its cloying smell is still  around.

The bride and the bridegroom are coming home today.

It seems but yesterday, that she was a child, romping about in short frocks.  I can still see her grinning, with heer front teeth missing.  Her bobbed hair, unruly, her shin often scratched, climbing that mango tree.  And then the lanky stage, with the hem  of   the frocks getting shorter, and hair now in pig-tails at the sides.  Even that stage passed, and now the child had become half girl, half woman, and we knew then that the sands were running out on childhood, and it was time we looked around for a suitable mate.So, the wedding bells.  So the wedding.

We stand on the porch awaiting their arrival – and there is a conglomeration  of conflicting emotions.  I am to tell the truth both happy  and sad.  Happy that we have done our best.  Given our daughter in marriage to a suitable boy. and that today, she comes home- my wedded daughter.  Sad? Yes, a little thread of sadness, tinges the joy ,just because of that .Because she is wedded, and the daughter who walks into the home today , will not be the girl she was, yesterday.

I remember other  times other days.  Other home-comings .  Away at boarding school, she would come home,running up the steps, with a spontaneous joy , glad to be home.  For then home was with us.  But now, home is with him. Eager to see us the parents , the brother, the two younger sisters , who are kids.  And she would be jabbering away, thirteen to the dozen, news of the school, what had we been doing, what ‘s for  tea, anything in the tin, what pictures are showing, where, are there guavas  on the tree, where’s Judy the dog ?and by jove , guess who has got selected to the district basketball team…. A kiss, a hug, and a sprint up the stairs.  But those were other times, other days, when she was still a child- Now, she comes home – a woman.

They have arrived.  They are coming.  She is dressed in a Kanchipuram sari, with a heavy border ,there are jasmines in her hair, chains on her neck, bangles on her wrist.  Not anymore in jeans or bells.  Staid and proper she comes. A little demure, a little shy. Still , there is a new light in her eye, a blush on heer cheeks.  Her steps match his.  She does not come running.  Not to-day.  Perhaps, not any more days.

And he , my son-in-law?  Perhaps, he finds it strange , as I do too, to have a mother -in-law  sprung on him….But when my daughter calls me , ma, he does likewise, albeit a little hesitant, a little diffident .  But I smile at them both and the awkwardness passes.

So, we go through the day.  Special dishes, special behavior.  The brother who used to tease her, with his own typical jokes, with an easy camaraderie, is inhibited to-day, and seems to have lost his bearings!  And the younger sisters too are intimidated by this new sister.  They just can’t get the hang of it  all.

We talk trying to dispel the strangeness.  Trying to put him at ease, to make him feel he belongs.  But are we really islands, unto ourselves?  We ask him relevant questions, wanting to know how our daughter will manage , in her new surroundings.  And perhaps he feels like a schoolboy on the mat.

My daughter used to sleep in the same room as the younger brother and one or other of the kid sisters used to share her bed.  But now there is another room, prepared  for them, with  a double-bed, and as they go to retire , the smallest one who hasn’t yet gone to sleep, throws a tantrum crying for her sister to sleep with her. I whisk her away, and the child cannot understand , why sister has to have a special room, unlike other times.

Their bedroom door is closed.  It seems strange .  For the first time in our home , our daughter sleeps,  with a door that is bolted. It sort of reminds me , mutely, that one chapter of her life  has closed. That childhood is left behind.  Nor can I awaken her in the mornings shaking her up ,for now she sleeps, with a man by her side.

So, it is, the old order changeth, yielding place to new , and so it is, our daughters leave us,.

As my daughter kisses me adieu, my throat constricts.  Farewell, my daughter, farewell, my son.  They smile at me, as they get into the car, that is to take them away.

And in my heart, The question arises.

Have I lost a daughter?

Or, have I gained a son?

My Initiation Into A Silly Game

With the Asia cup, cricket fever has caught on once again in my house.  My folks were perched in front of the TV. I  make an entrance in with a broom – to do the sweeping, but they will not have it.  “Come off it mom- let sleeping dust lie” said my daughter  knowing that no way will I be able to get them out of the room.  I slumped down on a chair.  If you can’t beat  them ,join them.

“Ah, what a lovely sixer”, that’s my son, jumping up to hit the ceiling .  “And uh..that’s a four.” “What’s a sixer, What’s a four’? I ask. “six runs for a sixer, and four for a boundary.  The batsman gets that extra runs’.”Funny reasoning I say truculently’’ ‘why he never even took one step”.

There is something being said about a square leg.  What sort of leg is that? No ball? Can’t he see the ball in the bowler’s hands?  And pray what is a dot ball?  Have they put dots on the ball?  First slip, second slip?  I didn’t see anyone slipping either “Oh gosh, he is out for a duck”! “Out for a duck? “ I shake my head “Who is going out to get a duck when the game is not over yet”?”  “He has bowled a maiden over”.  That gets my goat.

“Has he come to play the Romeo or to play cricket? Anyway where’s the maiden?  “I say looking at the screen.  Sure enough there are maidens there with warpaint over their faces, acting anything but ladylike.

“Who has bowled , which maiden over?”  I ask again.  They collapse in laughter.  “A wide”  I dare not ask what a wide is, nor an L.B.W. Discretion is the better part of valour.

Only when a silly point is mentioned do I get up and say “Ah,  it’s a real silly game.  And when you kids keep laughing  at me, that is not cricket......

The Mother of All Battles

                                                                 

I’ve fought battles.  Battles with my husband who is on an entirely different wavelength and who differs from me in almost everything.  Between you and me, that is why we still stay hitched.  For if you never had tiffs and arguments, and destination, but reach there looking younger and fresher to boot.  So as the bus went along, I started working my fingertips on my forehead,  drawing the lines, out and away.  And I puffed up my cheeks, first this side and then that, and pursed my lips to say ooh and eek and aah.

I was so immersed in doing myself a good turn, that I was oblivious of the fact that the passengers in the bus were turning around and looking at me strangely, and the lady next to me   got along famously and amicably day in and day out, it would not only be damned boring, but it would make you sick to the gills.

And I’ve had battles royal with my mother-in-law.  Since she would call a spade a spade, and give it to  you straight , without mincing words, and I don’t exactly belong to the type, who given a blow -  verbal or physical – would turn the other cheek, a la Christ’s  injunction.  We had battles galore, with the sparks flying upwards.

And then all the other usual battles, that come in the day’s bag.  Against rising prices, the cheating hawker, the noisy neighbours, and the recalcitrant kids,.

But now as if all this wasn’t enough, I’ve got to fight the mother of all battles.  The battle against – you’ve guessed it – old age.  Like Saddam Hussein I refuse to see the writing on the wall.

So though I’ve seen a legion of summers I take succor believing the dictum – you are not as old as you are but as young as you feel.  So I cock a snook at my years and keep thinking young, so don’t dress in staid sober colours.  Nor do I draw a line at wearing all those fancy chains and what-have-you.

The women’s magazines, which give you beauty tips, say that wrinkles, crow’s feet and frown lines can be kept at bay by smoothening them out with fingertips or puffing and blowing air.  So on a long bus trip, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.I realized what was happening only when the conductor came up and tapping me on the shoulder said, “:Lady, will you stop making funny faces “?

I realized then that all the passengers were eyeing me warily thinking that I was a lunatic.  Blushing and flushing, I made a quick exit, at the next stop, though I still had a long way to go.

So what if a tooth is lost here or there?  The dentist can set it right.  Only thing is to be careful that dentures fit snugly.  I remember an aunt, who went a-visiting.  While she had an hearty laugh, her dentures fell into the tea cup , much to the consternation of others, and to her embarrassment.

Exercise does it.  It can take away the years and keep you trim.  As for white hair, it can be turned black, thanks to the various dyes in the market.  Time was when grannys were white-haired and dignified.

The other day I came across my photo, taken in my teens.  All young , slim and svelte, and my heart sank..  Looking in the mirror I could see  the difference and it hit me in the pit of my stomach, that not even a blind man would call me young. The die was cast.  I looked old, irrevocably, irretrievably.  Not all the creams or lotions in the world would restore me to my former glory.  I was old .I am old.  I’ll be getting older.

But to hell with old age.  Remember , it’s in the mind.. Have the guts to face the odds.  I square my shoulders, spread a gooey stuff on my face, and I lie down with the face mask, determined not to get up, even if the house caught fire, or the president of India came a-visiting

Tomorrow Is Pay Day

Every last day of the month, my husband says with a smile “well today is the last of this blessed month.  Tomorrow , my dear is the first”.

From there, I go on to dream  of the things I must buy, the things I must do.  Build houses of cards,and factotems of imagination.  But then I reckon without the fact, that between the cup and the lip, or rather between my dreams and the reality, there is many a bill!  For, hardly has the new day dawned, the milkman  is at the door handing in his bill, in spite of the fact , that the ratio of milk to water, is one to four, the bill has to be paid.

So, they come handing in bills, butcher, baker, thinker, tailor.  It comes to such a pass, I lose count  of them all, and seem to be doing nothing else, but paying bills, right and left.  There seem to be a procession of them , demanding their dues.  I wouldn’t  be surprised  if the line included soldier, sailor, nor the devil himself.  The whole world apparently has woken up to the fact, that it is the first of the month

What of the pressure cooker, I had intended buying?  By jove, the pressure is now on my mind, striving to balance the budget, for it is only halfway through the month, and my purse has slimmed down, and wears the emaciated look of the cows you find before the dust bins on our street.  One by one, they get scrapped, the things I intended buying, the things I intended doing, like dyeing my hair, like having a  sumptuous dinner at the Taj Hotel.  And somewhere along the way is scrapped too, tricycle for my kid, the flower pot  for my drawing room.  What of the new sari I had fancied?  The one hanging on display, and which in my imagination I had seen myself wearing – the latest fashion.  I contend myself with the thought that there is nothing as dead  tomorrow as today’s fashion!

Mathematics was never my forte.  But even the problems I had to do at school, were not half as difficult as the problems  I have to face now.  Whom to pay first, whom  to pay last, how to stave off the wolf  from the door, and keep our bodies and souls together, on a pay packet, that is going , going , almost gone!  It is not so  far fetched to visualize a day  when I may have to beg, borrow or steal  All in the interests of existence.

Maybe, when next my husband points out, that we are facing a new month, I should exclaim with asperity “Well , so what”? It’s going to be another month of playing ring around the rose bush”.

But then life is made up of hopes, and dreams, and from the ashes, like a rising phoenix, hope eternal springs in the heart.  Anyway, I am a sucker enough to believe ,  that  this month , as I have been believing every  other month it’s going to be a better one.  That I’ll yet buy the things I dream about.

So I keep my fingers crossed, every last day of the month, even though my mind tells me, that money will just slip through my fingers, and when the month is over, it will be the same old story.. I’ll be where I was in square one, checkmated.