Happy 14th Birthday

Dear R,


Today is your 14th birthday. I have been reliving this entire week in my mind... what i did, when, how, with whom, who said what, why, what were my reactions and so on... it is a long long list... and you were still inside me and every minute I was saying to you, "Do you hear that, little girl?"(no we had not tested to know the sex of our child, but I was convinced that you would be you, a girl).


To cut it short, have a healthy, satisfying and happy life ahead. Try to make others happy... that is not the priority for many of us, but you should keep that in mind because when others are happy, so are you. This is something I see very strongly in your Dad. He tries his best to make others happy... and deep down somewhere, there is a slight pain, since your Dadubhai (my Dad) had the same streak. Possibly, unconsciously we girls look out for something of our Dads in our partners... hopefully you will do the same when your day and time comes.


We have tried to give you a very simple life, without much frills. It has been a life of constant movement, across cities, countries, jobs, and in the process we have tried to attend to you, to the best of our abilities. Yes, we have left you with the baby-sitter when you were barely 9 months old. And that did send guilt pangs deep down inside me, but you possibly understood that I needed the job at that point and you stood beside us very well. In fact, had you not, I would have had to quit my job and take care of you. That was Mumbai. Down to Kolkata too, you had an adjusting phase with successive nannies, despite the fact that for a period, we did stay with your grand-parents. And adjust you did. Come Delhi and the same story continued. It was only beginning our stay at Muscat that you started staying alone while I was at work and it is only now that I do not feel daunted by your vacations any more, knowing well that you and I will manage together and manage well.


I do not know how you will turn out as an adult. The only thing I will ask of you is responsibility. You need to be able to take responsibility for your actions, your words and stand by what you feel and do. Never be afraid of taking a stand, even if it means you are against the others. If deep within, you feel you are right, you are. Go by that.


We have tried to give you some basic values, since we have lived by them. You have seen our lives, rather openly and know what we have stood for. Nothing high falutin, but values that should help you lead your life on a straight path. Ideally, we would want you to live by the values we have given you, but beyond a point, rest assured, we will not pry to check what you are doing, though if ever I see that you cannot look eye to eye with your Mummy, I would deduce that you have goofed up somewhere. Never allow that to happen.


We value privacy very highly. But privacy should always come with a sense of responsibility. Keep that in mind.


You do not have to be the first student of your grade. You just have to do your best, in whatever you do. Thus, even for your dance rehersals, I was being very particular about the timings. You need to realise the value of time and commitments that you make.


Even if I sould like having given a lecture, bear with me. These are things which I have to tell you while you are growing. They may become redundant once you are fully grown.


Yes, I need to tell you this too... I LOVE YOU A LOT.


Mummy

she does not have to be a dancer

is what i think, but not B of R and that was the provocation for the last fight that we had... nothing new, we keep having it every now and then, especially weekends.


of late, R has started taking interest in extra-curricular activites. when she was tiny, i did try to get her into music (which did not interest her) and later, into violin. she was not interested by this either... i quit thinking that she is another lazy lady like her mother, but when she actively took interest in public speaking, we enrolled her into Gavel's Club (the junior wing of Toastmasters)... i was not surpised by this. someone who reads and reads should be able to speak well as well.

what did surprise me was the latest interest -- dance. so in the latest Bengali Parishad function, she herself went and got her name in for the forthcoming dance recital, coming Friday. so for the past three weekends, life has revolved around dropping and picking her up from her dance rehersals. this week, it has and is going to be extra hectic because of in-between week practice sessions.


last weekend when we had dropped her and were leaving, the lady who is guiding the practice, came up to us and said, "your daughter is not able to pick up the steps well, despite my showing it to her. since this is an important function and will be telecast on Star Ananda, i will see how she does today and then decide whether she will participate or not," all this while i knew that the tailor had been called to take the costume measurements.


i told the lady, "she has never danced on stage. so if she is stiff, she has to put in more practice now... see how she is today..." while B maintained a stony silence and an equally stony face, with the jaws hardening. my heart broke and i kept remembering R's anxious face as she was dancing.


"Not enough said or protested, because she did not tell this to us earlier. on the penultimate day, how can she say this. i am going to pick her up right now and register my protest that this is an unprofessional way of doing things, that there should have been an audition and elimination," B stormed at me.


we left from there, went to pick up a gift for a birthday party that evening and were constantly arguing over why i did not tell the lady what B felt. in fact, B's colleague who saw us at the store said later, "K (his wife) and i did not call you because you were so engrossed in talking (read fighting)."


B kept calling R and she kept saying she is practising. then B mentioned, "the lady said you could be out if you do not do well, and you still want to do?" R replied, "yes, i will." we wre not sure whther she knew she could be dropped.


we went back to pick her up and on the way, i said, "dancing is no priority, if she is out, she is." "NO, there has to be a method and though we know R is not a trained dancer, it is her participation that counts. i will talk to the lady but you will not only be with me, you will say exactly what should be said," B was forceful and this was the parent in him talking, not my partner, i realised.


i followed him in (for a change) and saw the girls practising engrossed. B walked in straight and i told the lady, "in case you are dropping her, do that today, now. and imagine what will go on in the child's mind to know that she is being dropped now."


"she is doing much better than she was and with practice in front of the mirror, she will know exactly where to improve." she did not sound unprofessional in the least.


so little miss R is dancing all day in front of the mirror, but i keep having a nagging doubt in my mind: am i ok as a parent? or do i need to be more socially protective of her? with my poor social skills, possibly R misses out on these small things which will make her happier.... so here i am running around in the evenings, picking up and dropping children for unofficial practice sessions at my place and at others'... this has made me wonder how vulnerable are we as parents and how little things matter when it comes to the child.


Wish R luck for her performance...

why are so many marriages going wrong?

this is something i wonder way too often... the number of dysfunctional families have just leap-frogged, marriages are going wrong left, right and centre.

over the years, in all of my working life, i have had friends who may have been colleagues to start with, but became really good friends, later on, either as we have moved out of the city, moved jobs or just moved on. and while B used to joke saying, "you have so many divorced friends", i never took it seriously, though i did have friends who were women and men, but a lot many were single, post marriage.


and let me tell you, almost none of my these single friends were very modern... the reason why i am saying this is: many a times, we tend to equate being forward in life comes with being modern. a couple of my friends, in fact, two to be precise, one man and the other a lady, came from very ordinary, middle-class homes. the lady went through a messy divorce in her 50s. was she dumb? no, she wasn't... she just thought things would get better, waited for the child to settle a little and moved out to eke out her own life at 45+. she now has a grandchild, ex-husband has re-married, but she is single, whether happily so, i do not know.
the other friend, the man, allowed his ex-wife to walk out on him, gave the divorce, was single for a time and has now settled into not-so-happy a marriage, but has become wiser as his words seem to suggest, "i have learnt to live with what i cannot change."



there have been others who have, i mean still have, not really great marriages, but have withstood the social pressures of making it work -- parents, children, this, that and the other -- and have just continued being as social entities, though hardly as partners. and i mean by partners, people who bond, who have opinions of their own, air those opinions but have learnt to respect each other (and the stands they take as individuals). that is the ideal situation which should prevail in this life-long relationship... in fact, we spend more time with our respective spouse than any other human being -- parents, siblings or children. each of these stay with us for a period and recedes to the background when another comes in...



what i have felt clearly over these years is: the crux to making a marriage tick is a fair dose of self respect and mutual respect. if these two are there, most partnerships last and happily so...



i feel sad for many people i know who are going through a messy life just because they have to... at the end of a harrowing experience, i have seen their faces change... they wear a weathered expression, with a smile that has lost the vibrancy. and it is then that i realise that many of us who have not the greatest marriage on Earth, but at least one which gives us enough air to breathe, have opinions, air them with little doubt and move on, without too much baggage, are indeed lucky.

letter from a daughter to her father...

May 2008 is when i had written the letter below and today when i received a similar letter from a friend to her father, i thought, i could share this with you... in that other letter, it is a similar tale of growing up, of growing away from where she began, the path she has traversed and how insecure she is without her dad... and this post is dedicated to that friend of mine...

Dear Dad,
Ten years on, rather six months less than ten years, I am writing again. Looking through those earlier writings, I decided it is time I wrote again, just to tell you how far I have been able to follow what you had told me way back in 1980… “be guided by your head, not heart.” What you did not tell me -- possibly left it unsaid for me to learn myself, was the tool I had to apply, the method I had to adopt, to get on with this business of living and life – detachment.
Today, at 42, I would not say, I know how perfectly to negotiate life. It seems too tall a claim. But I certainly can tell you that I have become more seasoned, more mature, and more confident, more focused, less clumsy, less emotional. I am able to decide with firmness. I rarely break down if at all. I rarely feel that lump inside the throat, or those burning eyes, trying to fight back tears when things go wrong.
And things do go wrong even now – at home, at work, with my child, sometimes with friends and even my spouse. But I have learnt to deal, tackle, manage and move on, putting those instances aside, not letting them interfere with the process of everyday life. Yes, what I do very often, and here again, in my mind, it is one image of yours that keeps popping up… your pacing up and down at home, with a heavy look on your face. What I do is also similar… nope, I do not pace up and down, with a heavy face, you know I am lazy… but while I am alone (and very often I am, while I drive back and forth the whole city for work, for running domestic errands or for dropping the child to her classes), I am in constant dialogue with myself… the mind races with those things that went wrong, going over and over again at the particular instance that is troubling me, trying to assess what was my responsibility in the whole affair. And, when the heaviness in the heart ceases, I know I have addressed the issue, dealt with it. Not a soul comes to know how, but I know I have and it gives a great feeling within that I have succeeded once again. Should I call it independence? I do not know but one thing I certainly know, I will tell my daughter how to try living from the day go. In fact, this is one thing I told you then too… that I would rear her well. She is grown now, does most of her things by herself – but I still have to tell her about the art of detachment. I will not leave her to discover it herself – while that discovery might give her an edge, it certainly will corrode the freshness of her face, the lilt in her smile and the look of her eyes.
Yes, all of these are no longer there in me…while I am more at ease with life in general, there is no freshness in the face, no lilt in my smile and no innocence in the eyes. I have come of age. And that I hope to fight in my child.
I can almost see you smile…and I know the reason. You are trying to ask me: How will so attached a mother teach her daughter detachment? But as I said, I am more prepared now… ten years back, I would have been stumped with this question, leaving you to laugh condescendingly at my inexperience… but not any more… I am armed with a logic now: I will at least tell her, it is up to her to understand, learn and practise it in life.
Let’s agree to differ if the logic does not appeal to you. But at least I have told you what it is that you did not tell me, while holding my hand and teaching me how to walk, you left unsaid that the road of life is so difficult, and more so, without a loving hand.
And here, I better be honest -- I still remain that child of yours who is, by now, struggling to fight back tears since it is only a Dad who would listen to so much of complaints after so many years.
***