The Rampant 21st Century and a Reckless Child

I am blessed with the best parents in this world not solely for the usual soul good reasons but also for their ability to satiate a demand that I often live in oblivion with. So,

I never had to ask them for anything therefore to not ask is a non-ignorant feature of my character sketch. I often walk upto my parents my father in specific as my mother has a plant cutting to graft or a new boutique to explore, I ask daddy "was I reckless as a kid?" now who doesn't like t

heir children? in a pendulum like movement he nods his neck in total denial . No way! Now that's the point I wish to make. Every parent thinks his child is better than the other but is his opinion in compliance with the first world society?

I am afraid not!

              I was gifted an iphone 4s sometime back, then my dad who always feels extra love for me despite me doing nothing like NOTHING gifted an upgraded version of that phone on my  last birthday. I am very sadly conceding my first ever iPhone couldn't last long after that because unfortunately it lost its life to a ten year old. The scratches on the  new refrigerator at a relative's house screeched in silence at the harassment by some four year olds. My dad had to bear the pain of his thumb being crushed in the car door that was apparently Forced closed by another some year old on a chilly january afternoon. In any restaurant that you can afford to go, there are cranky kids demanding everything even a big bottle of a fruit champagne. In the food court of a mall i see kids eating meals like a 25year old man with beard to maintain and a sperm count to check on. My seven year old cousin has a girlfriend something he is too proud of . The little girls aren't little anymore they are the next big thing with zero tolerance. There are so many of them that I'd write a separate article about it in days to come.Do I sound harsh? they are kids! immature, innocent, but INTIMIDATING yes!

               The sun bathing ugly aunties aka mother-in-laws say " aaj cal ke bache aise hi hote hain", true, we now can get kids out of a test tube or an unknown woman's vagina, or through a sperm filled injection commonly called insemination and proudly call them ours but children are born children and we socialise them to be stupid children. This exactly is the subject matter of this write up. The contemporary period laced with computers and smartphones and internet had to breed smart children  but their over smartness costed me my phone. They were expected to be well informed but  the IT has robbed them of their IQ hypnotising them with stupid online games. These kids are the epitome of mechanics of mannerisms where they fold hands touch feet say thank you and sorry because they have been taught to be rot learners after all 2*2=4 . The current situation is like using a new faucet in a renovated bathroom .You just have to sensationalise it and booooom there's water! too much to wash your hands awkwardly nudging you to wash your face as well. Thus stupid children are a consequence of a problem whose roots lie in their preferential upbringing.

             The wife today is a well educated woman who is conscious of her rights national as well as global, her husband is but of course a man of virtue decently aware of the empowerment scenario and a firm believer of equality of sex thank you sir Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar all because of your efforts. Marriage is an obligation more profound an institution, and woman refuses to submit to the subordination by her man. When these two learned people get married its presumed they will bear good children  with a rational approach to life. Life is not lived on assumptions alas! because the doctor herself feels pregnancy is a disease that needs complete bed rest.The engineer has still not engineered the task of breastfeeding and since the child is a joint asset the husband is ordered to assist the manager wife sans discrimination, prejudice or ill will. My child is my pampered baby babu shona no rona because I the doting mother change your potty soaked pampers and rub your bums to shiny glory all day long.

         We don't understand the concept of pampering. hugs and kisses are gestures of love and following the mostly stupid demands of your child is this century's enslavement,Its not pampering in any form. A child has to be loved for he deserves it but you have to set limits too. When mothers crib about their disobedient children and complain "they don't listen to me" I feel its an indication to introspect. When you are busy listening to your phone more than listening to your child the child imitates you and listens to that lifeless phone more ardently. When the same mothers worry about their children not eating anything I wonder how can they even feel that, my dog whined without fail when he felt hungry ,your child is blessed with a functional vocal chord and an ability to understand learn and speak! open your eyes and ears later but mind first. Again,when you say your child is the best understand the consequence of the same. This best feeling shall prevail over him when he surrounds himself with people better than him and believe me, your illogical sigh of hope will throw him into the daftness of his being making him a tiny subject of either mockery or hate, at times both.
              The persistent problem of inflation and irritating kids is the fact that parents don't talk to their children. They don't reason them, and often rubbish their why and what. The concept of generation gap surfaces too soon today because parents do not connect with their child, they believe in idealism but fail to impart integrity.This probably is the reason why  today's children are growing up to be ungrateful, self-centred, disobedient individuals. So,Next time when your child makes an unreasonable demand try to give him reasons for your refusal rather than giving that hi-five on his cheek or humiliating him with that "sasta Rakshas "look in public when he misbehaves. You are raising an individual who is a reflection of not him but you! set good examples and build up that communication channel strong enough for your child to reach out to you in his phase of crisis. Parenting is not easy, parenting is not perfect simply because "to err is human" but then to learn and rectify is every bit of human too. Make it easy for him to realise the subtlety of the right and wrong especially when you would not be around.

P.S.: A lot many wouldn't agree much with me precisely because i am no parent, and do not shoulder the responsibility of raising a child or may be because i have had the audacity to question you on something i have no direct link with. You can think to yourself "jab tumhara time ayega tab dekhenge", I wrote what i felt if you identify with the above issue introspect if you don't introspect anyway. Celebrate childhood not the chaos that it brings.

signing off

srishti.

                 

                      I write because I want to write but I am not Mr Bachchan

What makes you sad? love found but lost, an ugly corporate boss, nagging parents, or a dysfunctional social life…what? 

There are many reasons that you may be able to count which makes you happy but the optimistic bug in our mind refrains us from thinking about what makes us sad. 

"Don't be sad everything will fall in place when the time is right.  Okay! so, where is this shop from where i can purchase the right time? Everything happens for a reason, and whatever happens, happens for good. Yes may be! but i am sad in this very moment, how do i look for "the" reason that can make me feel happy about what has happened?.Why do we consume failure like poison and feel sad? why can't we accept, learn and rebuild? what makes us sad is our fear of failure but  Failures are as much a part of us as success is. Economically speaking, they are complimentary to each other. 

                                    What is success and how do we define failure but? normally if an individual is earning lots of money he is successful, but if he is not content with his job profile or is in a profession by chance he is undoubtedly a failure. Man is the most engineered creation of god, he is born with the ability to learn and the courage to rectify.  Every time he fails he makes another attempt to correct his mistakes, he chases success sometimes for himself, sometimes for his parents and family but most other times for the larger society. Driven by the temptation of being called successful he refuses to identify his true self . Failures are exasperating but isn't success exhausting? We allow failures to affect us because we want to fit into the framework of the society we are born into. The society preaches success and worships the successful . We don't praise a child who scores 75% in his board exams we judge another who scored 95% but failed to qualify the entrance exam, what are we heading to? We suggest people over what they should and what they shouldn't without introspecting our own selves,"do not waste your time preparing for so and so exam you are good at so and so go ahead with it". There are fishes, who try to climb a tree, few may die half way through and  the few that sustain to reach the top would die too. The society calls such people silly but they aren't silly, they are those who dreamt and dared to make it their reality against all odds. We admire the athletes that have made the country proud in 2016 Paralympics but they know one amongst five in us had failed to support them. Failure or success depends upon how happy you are with your life, you go around the world and call yourself a traveller, you own a DSLR and call yourself a photographer I have a pen therefore I call myself a writer, isn't this enough a parameter for us to accept or we still want the scale of fail and pass to measure success?

                                     Life is more than the idea of failure and even bigger than the idea of success. I consider myself to be the most glorious failure of the decade, not because I flunked a class in school, or have not qualified the most difficult exam of the country but I am a failure because I allowed others to underestimate my potential , I gave them the power to judge my intelligence and that made me sad. This sadness was more due to my disconnect with my conscience. When you decide to take up a task to prove yourself to others you tend to fail. Thus, failures make you sad because you look at yourself through the societal prism oblivious to the mirror of your mind. You define yourself by the way they define you, hence you are dumb if they think you are dumb, and you are beautiful if they believe in the beauty of your character,character varying objectively. Likewise you are a failure because they think you are one. A person's salary, the brand of clothes,a car, home etc does not define success, neither does the red line in the report card or a second hand scooter describe failure .We are a group of modern apes who imitate each other to the extent that different becomes the next normal like boyfriend jeans these days. This society is harsh when it treats you the way you dislike and the same society is great if it gives you the opportunity to nag someone who is above the limits of failure and success. To reach the ultimate destination is not success but to be content with your efforts, happy with your existence and your ability to run when no one is willing to walk is how I define success. Life has a bigger mission than merely attaining the glory of being something or nothing and its called "MOKSHA".

P:S: Industrial revolution advanced the English Economy, and the Boston tea party changed the outlook of America. A country progresses by the courage of its people to take risks, accept failures and celebrate success.#changeyourperception

signing off

srishti

    

                 

                  

My Father, His Story

 They gave birth to me and with me they were born too- my father and my mother.
 I needed care and attention,they wanted love and affection this has bounded us beyond the traditional protector-provider relationship into a much desired confidence and a confidante relationship today. I have evolved into a better human being and they have helped in my evolution by evolving themselves.

Put in place Sigmund Freud's theory of OEDIPUS COMPLEX or cite the example of Janak proposing the most difficult task to be qualified to marry his beloved daughter Janki. The father-daughter relationship has been glorified since time immemorial. The sole idea of being a woman is based upon the ability to nurture and deliver another life which further propagates the idea of superiority that a woman often enjoys at the behest of the society over and above a man. The fact that no one but a mother alone has the courage as well as the patience to expand her tummy to adjust her little one, without fearing distortion of her body  and the excruciating physical trauma of delivering a human being does not in any way belittle the role of the father who without going through the labor feels the pain of it.  If the mother celebrates the joy of  watching her child take the first step it is the father who prepares himself to run with him/her in the long race that  life will offer. It is not always about the mother it is not even an overdose of fatherhood but it is just about a father hence MY FATHER,HIS STORY!

                   The concept of a new life isn't new, the cycle of birth and death is a sign of continuity for a society. Its only when you have a little one who's name and responsibility gets correlated to yours, the shrieking cries and pangs of hunger keeps you awake till late at night making snoozing alarm go vintage, the toilet behaviour has to be figured and sorted out by you thats when the new life starts to enchant you. The tiny palm clutching your finger so tight and the joy of nursing the softest thing you had touched hitherto. How is that feeling of feeling that someone in this big world recognises only your touch? You probably cannot verbalise it, because its a feeling of ecstasy that captivates you absolutely. My father might have felt the same when he had held me for the first time, a tiny human being with hair on head wrapped in a neat blanket sleeping so calmly in oblivion.

 People have their own reasons behind the names they choose for reference, my father emphasised upon being called DADDY in a time when everyone around had normalised PAPA over PITAJI( may be). I don't know about them who imitate for the sake of being Unique but for daddy, the idea was inspired from the movie DADDY where the protagonist singer finds his voice again through his daughter. May be i was that new lease of life he knew wasn't temporal.

                  MY father is not a batman or a superman he is a normal imperfect human being who has struggled and toiled to be what he is today.  From kisses, hugs,and chocolates for pampering us to holding us up when we were fast asleep on the scooter in motion to throwing us in air and tickling us till the sounds of our laughter echoed the house. He has loved us, he has cried with us, tried new food,places and even today our struggles tantalise his sinews more than exhausting our mind. He has relived his childhood with us and has influenced us to be generous in all walks of life.While my birth was a rejoice for him his birth was just another addition to be fed from a meagre income. Amidst the chaos of a hand to mouth life where recreation was little thought about, he was a GOD"S CHILD . Studious, bright and charming befitting the perfect definition of a good son who brought home respect rather than ruckus.

A child who studied when everyone was dreaming in their slumber, palmed his mouth to suppress the screeching pain when the skin of his tender arm got crushed between the gap the table had developed, ran in the morning to fetch milk for an old neighbour to get some kerosene in return to light his study lamp and studied again even as everyone was wide awake. Books were his best friend and Munshi Premchand his favourite author. If today you call him arrogant then may be you are less educated or you have struggled not to be where you are today! because "abhav ke prabhav se bhi insaan bohot seekhta hai".

When other fathers were worried about numbers he was satisfied with our knack to learn. I guess thats what good education acquired through hard work tends to serve. Children at the cusp of teenage often develop a habit of excusing themselves for the over smartness they exhibit, it is during these formative years that the role of the father becomes more prominent than the mother's who generally are emotionally fragile. It is the father who can wisely explain the subtlety of the difference between the right and the wrong, the good and the bad. When i come across kids with  extrapolated demands which causes massive embarrassment to their parents I feel glad, not because I wasn't one of them but because my father was different. I never made an excuse or denied conceding a mistake because i knew daddy would understand. He taught us what books did not- kindness, politeness and the ability to empathise which are not just the adjectives that fetch you 2 marks in an english exam these are the magical qualities that make you acceptable thus loveable. Hence we are loved not because we came first but because we were moulded to be loved.

                 My father was as much a cumulative success as I m a cumulative failure today! Many years ago he had to be felicitated for standing first in his school, his teacher did not allow him on stage because he was violating the dress code. He was asked to remove his pullover, I cannot imagine how helpless and humiliated he might have felt in confiding that his shirt was torn therefore he cannot take off the pullover. The teacher was adamant ,may be he didn't know he was teaching perseverance to my father. He buys himself shirts from exclusive showrooms today and makes sure to buy few for his father too (an appreciation he seldom gets nevertheless he fulfils his responsibilities ). The principal did felicitate him that day and he didn't have to take off the sweater. His hard work has proved its metal. His name written in golden letters still finds its place on the list of toppers. Ironical may be! I have managed a second rank but I never topped! 

             Daddy's life sounds amusing when he narrates it in his humorous style of storytelling. Sitting on a comfortable revolving chair, wearing crisp clean uniforms and having access to everything( almost) keeps me aloof from experiencing the hardships that scarcity brings, yet I have been taught to be humble. Money can buy the luxury of materialism but its never enough to completely satisfy your satiety for more, your more will always be less for some and your less will be more for a few.

 It was his humility to not react when he was mocked for sharing details of his dream house,abstaining from hatred that one develops for being criticised he made the impossible a reality thus, SAMRUDHDH-SRISHTI! his brainchild and the so thought ambitious dream which he has named after us-his daughters. 

          We have imitated the west blindly through blue denims, ATMs and iPhones but we remain orthodox at heart. A lot of people ask my father why aren't you marrying your daughter or if you don't marry her today she will slip out of your hands tomorrow. My father has not loved me by virtue of being my father only, he has also loved  me for what I am. When we talk about EQUALITY we do not imply role reversal. A man in any advanced society cannot bear children God gave this opportunity to women alone. EQUALITY simply means EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITIES that many fathers do not provide their daughters with despite loving them to the moon and back and much more. He has not stopped us from realising our dreams for he has faith in us. He did not send us away from home because it is a trend, he is aware of our abilities, and I owe my skill of writing to him.

 A father is not a huge mountain who protects his children, nor is the pharaoh( Egyptian king) who gratifies the family needs . A father is as sagacious as a mustard seed who keeps his family together despite the differences the members develop due to differences in their individuality. Today when amazon provides us everything from needles to pins to sofas and car we define individuality more in terms of segregation. If there are two children in a family they will have their own likes and dislikes, easiest apparently is to offer tangy flavour to one and cheesy flavour to other respectively validating the difference further. A more rational way is to fuse them and offer flavours of both in a new flavour altogether.

   Dear Daddy, you are the best father because you didn't not protect us from the dark instead you showed us how to rekindle the fire within and be our own sunshine. You are a great husband not because you are liable to protect the dignity of your wife but because we have not seen her cry because of you. You are a good son because your mother blessed you even in her death and you are the most wonderful man because you love your children and they love you more with each passing day.

     Dear daddy, there would be days when people will misinterpret your actions for arrogance but you don't feel let down. You will be misquoted by your kin someday don't feel defeated. They will never know you, they will never make the effort to learn about your good intentions. The world is selfish it shall be. If a single rose can be our garden,our family our world.You are my father and this is OUR STORY.

signing off

Srishti

           

                              

Please don't love me!

                                  PLEASE DON'T LOVE ME!

      Please don't love me, yes don't love me if you love me for the skin I'm covered with, for i m a naked soul.
If you love me because i m sweet and chirpy please don't love me for i have bitter thoughts about people who have a knack for running into me as per convenience.
Don't love me if you love me for my candid confessions for one day you will hate me for speaking the truth.
Don't love me if you love me for being confident and not afraid of walking alone for, the fear of future stalks me, the gushing wind on a dark night scares me, my belief in myself starts tantalising my sinews at the slight provocation of being called a failure.
Don't love me if loving me demands you to be fake forcing you to show me all that pleases but my eyes alone. 
Don't love me if you want to be my protector allow me to tread on the rocky path my way.
Don't ever love me if the fragility of my emotions trouble you, i was the same girl who lent you the shoulder of support and sympathy  when the world refused to grant you an opportunity you believed you deserved.
REMEMBER THAT!
Don't love me for the sake of loving me for i will walk out of the relationship the day i realise there is no love left.
Love me because i m a human, all flawed! love me because I love you and not the idea of loving you….

Be the shining armour of my life ,give me new wings when the old ones wear out,sing a new song when the old one dies down, look for me amidst the thousand stars you would be surrounded with for I've only longed for you.
Love me only if you have the courage to love me for randomness governs my mind.

Love me for the kind human i have nurtured within even if the tempest engulfs us for a while.
Love me for my thoughts which may not be right but believe it,they are filled with the innocence i have managed to save from the cruel world.
Love me for the free bird that i am, yellow in the spring and black at the onset of fall. Love me for my dignified nakedness of the soul.
Love me for i am meant to be loved, i am not a girl in the little fish bowl,  I am myself and I love you for loving me more!

POST-SCRIPT.: I applaud you for the brainstorming you've gone ahead with inside your heavy weighing brain but trust me the use of social media to indulge into the sinful pleasures of a private life...nope! not my kind but thank you anyway.

signing off

Srishti

Status Update: My Haunting age!

Every form of existence serves a purpose. the trees transpire, we respire, the crow scavenges and the butterfly pollinates. Life has one simple rule mourn the dead and move on.  The engineers around have little reluctance in conceding that they slogged their asses off to mug up the engineering drawings and operations of the motherboard, the management graduates are a notch above they provide loans for car and house after banging their heads in economics, finance and HR , the dentist next door prescribed wrong medicines because the patient was a criminal offender oblivious to the hippocratic oath, the teachers have a lobby too fuck caesar how is its salad made? Education empowers! of course it does, matrimony profiles elaborate academic degrees more than marriageable abilities. in a competitive scenario the homely becomes the kitty parties obsessed and the working are as delightful as a split banana with chocolate dressing. I don't work in an MNC wear a dark shade of lipstick,thick liners and bitch about my desperate boss in the corporate lobby, I am not a management professional with the abilities of Satya Nadella waiting for the perfect" rajkumar" on a safe ghoda, I am not even marrying to jump into reproductive oops! productive activities of life. I am 26 unemployed, unproductive and absolutely unaware of where life is meandering! i doubt if life is meandering actually.

                                                       Life is holy shit in its own way. You build a castle in still air but the wind blows it away . There's no thunder by the way ,it only makes you wonder WTF did just happen? Lord krishna said everything happens for a reason and that reason brings an optimistic result, the VCR in the cerebrum rewinds and repeats the golden words of glory but the castle is gone and i still shampoo my hair thrice a week( i avoid thursday okay). doesn't make sense? Who said i was talking sense anyway. well, Sense reminds me of the fat aunties my mommy bumps into every now and then. In an expensive" benarasi "broad border sari  matched well with an expensive brocade blouse she thinks she looks like a baby doll however, my magnified glass perception of her is more of a "charbie "than a barbie. My perception doesn't matter but article 19 boss! hurdle. Everything has a right age, girls should marry by 25 or 26 otherwise she can face complications in conceiving or she may not get married at all because "saifeena" is the most favourite bollywood couple. My gregarious mother i guess was standing or sitting under an "ashoka"tree when the words of wisdom were thrown at her. Enlightened enough she called me at her usual time in the night and served the same shit in a more beautiful platter implicitly. Now, either my mom has not grown up or she feels i am technologically challenged. Complications at 26? i can google and search at least a hundred girls who had had complications while conceiving or delivering at the perfect age of 25 or 26 or even 23. and hello how about IVF? or better adoption? these " Ekta kapoor "awarded empowered aunties can force you to slid into depression if your humour ain't satisfying.

                                         Talking recklessly about marriage, career, career growth, children and relationships do not amuse me, and i have no intentions to belittle any one. If getting married to the man of your choice is your freedom, to work in an NGO or an MNC is your freedom, to conceive or to not conceive is again a freedom you believe you are entitled to then why do you restrict mine? Conventions are proposed and propagated by the society, culture, and clan we are a part of what does not serve the purpose has to be shunned.  I strive to pursue what my instinct allows me so that along few years I would have only myself to blame or to appreciate the decisions i have made today. burdened by the norms of the society parents marry off their daughters fearing the most inconsequential. Many of my friends are management graduates who have done nothing .They feel empowered because they got the right to choose a groom from amongst the boys their parents have suggested. The private colleges are thriving, education has become a business serving the purpose of the rich, marriages are fixed in heaven and held on Facebook Instagram and twitter, poor Humpty Dumpty's fall is mocked since ages ,now we GBU in the comment box over a bizarre check in to the hospital. ( checked in a hospital to have a c-sec….holy fuck!) the paradox continues unabated and fokats like me derive ideas thats serve peanuts!

p.s.: i m not apologetic!