Tthe race is on. As the rats look either side and run faster, I stand clenching my hands in tension and anticipation. My baby rat is on the right most lane and I crane my neck to have a peek. Prayers are sent Heavenwards for divine intervention to save my baby rat. All the spectators have their own prayers, some folding hands, some kneeling and most of them yelling, with sweat dripping down their temples. With a sudden jerk, I open my eyes. Too much of chicken and rice can give you such nightmares in broad daylight! I have two little rats at home. They run the race pretty well, but I am not satisfied. “This is a cruel, cruel world”, I tell them looking all sincere, as they hold the joysticks of their PS3. The bigger rat just nods his head and the little one keeps kicking someone on the large TV screen.
Our children are rats and chickens to us. Rats because they run the race and broiler chicken because they are custom made to a feeding cycle. It is corn flakes in the morning. As the schools cry for a healthy lunch, we pack those two chappatis with a tomato sauce smiley or that spoonful of rice with fried potatoes. Night comes and the lazy career woman syndrome sets in, as we dial for that delectable pizza with cheese dripping from it. Weekends are spent at KFC and Domino’s as we watch our ‘slightly’ over weight kids lick the finger good.
We have visitors, our rats promptly run to their holes armed with their tabs. Not even a courteous ‘Welcome aunty’ or ‘Hi uncle’. All their childhood they spend growing vegetables in Farmville and feeding the chicken in Hay Day. While we were bathing in the rivers with cousins and played in the fields, all our children have for company are the dragons they slay in Game of Thrones. Locked in their own world, clutching the tab which is their lifeline, the kids stay at home, waiting for their Mom and a sloppy dinner.
So… do our children socialise? Yes, they do. When it comes to chatting and socialising, they are way ahead of us in Whatsapp. Statuses like “I am what I am”, “I have an attitude” and little red hearts pop up. Locking themselves up in rooms physically, in chat groups mentally, we know not the paths they tread. When you have that aged uncle and aunt visit you, calling out the kid, “Beta…kaise ho?” the little one’s facial expression is priceless. Neighbours are always “Chintu ki mummy” or “Bunty ke papa” and relatives are “Woh lal saree auntyji”. The moment they say their byes, they dash away in a flash to the sanctum of their rooms, back to their Lara Crofts raiding tombs.
The number of classes they attend to satisfy the unquenched thirst of the Mom and Dad needs all fingers of both hands and legs to count. Starting from abacus classes where the poor kids shake and chuck their fingers like crazy to the karate classes where they break tiles imagining them to be their parents’ faces, children today are put under undue stress. Our unfulfilled dreams are our children’s additional baggage. We keep honing their ‘skills’ for succeeding in the rat race, in material pursuits, that we forget children are just children and their dreams are filled with balloons and bubbles, not Newton’s laws and Pythagoras theorem. I am still wondering if there will be a day when I will really put to use my favourite (a+b)2=(a+b)(a+b) algebra that I learnt in my mom’s favourite kneel-asana! Spending quality time with the children and plain ‘listening’ to their babble would suffice. Watching their sleeping form with a smile on our lips is enough. All this I write as my little rats play God of War, a smile playing on my lips.
[/column][column size=”4/5″]
Nivedita Louis
The writer is currently a Commercial Apprentice with Southern Railways. She is married with two kids. She has a B.Com and an MBA and is an avid blogger, social activist and voracious reader. You can read more of her writings at: www.cloudninetalks.blogspot.com[/column]