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.