Tag Archives: Parents

Behrupiya!

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They say nothing comes free in life,

On most occasions I guess,

But one thing that’s certainly under our control and don’t have to depend on others is,

The face or the Venetian mask we choose to portrait to the world,

Depending on different situations and circumstances,

and

Various roles we play,

Be it a son/daughter,

A parent/grandparent,

A spouse,

A worker,

or

A boss,

Question being,

Does it fall under the category of a behrupiya or an impressionist?

And if it does,

Does it serve better to be one than not to be?

Who is a behrupiya after all?

One who possesses the intellect to know what’s required in a situation,

One who is a master at performing the way one is supposed to,

One who understands the person in front of him/her,

and

One who is empathetic enough not to hurt the other.

Looks like it’s fantastic thing to be a behrupiya,

What matters though is the intention behind being one!

Source for the Image: https://www.amazon.com/Hophen-Masquerade-Venetian-Jester-Decoration/dp/B07WFL3F8B

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Don’t talk to Strangers!

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Possibly the most common thing told to all kids by their parents,

Irrespective of caste, class or religion,

Across geographies and beyond borders,

Universally applicable and much accepted,

Yet

Have you ever wondered whether such teachings have even the slightest relevance in this era of Internet that we all live in?

Every day, kids are interacting with all kinds of strangers,

Be it on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram etc.

or

Be it dating platforms such as Tinder, Bumble etc.

Getting influenced each day,

Building their thought process every hour,

Getting exposed to all sorts of content,

As a parent, it’s but natural to be worried of where this can drive their kids to!

More than worrying though, what helps is,

To work towards building trust and ladder of communication between themselves and their kids,

To try and become friends who hear them out whenever they need someone to,

and

To be able to unconditionally devote time and energy for the kids’ well being.

Parents out there have a choice,

To be or not to be, A parent that is!

Source for the Image: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/stranger

Crying Kid!

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At times, when you are not doing something so called meaningful, meaningful things happen. 

Just noticed, that a kid has kept on crying for more than 10 minutes in a nearby apartment. 

Don’t really know the reason, but makes me wonder whether that’s how future is going to be for most of the kids with the kind of education system we have in place. 

An education system which kills all curiosity and an ability to question would surely lead our kids and thereby society in that direction. 

Not just kids, we adults are often found to be crying over one thing or the other,

Be it the boss screwing us up today with shit load of work,

Spouse quarrels, 

Traffic jams, 

Physical discomfort, 

What not!

Simply being unable to handle different challenging situations at different points of time in our lives, 

Which takes us back to the crying kid, 

What if:

The crying kid was catered to in a manner so that he/she would be able to manage his/her state of mind, 

Adult stakeholders (parents, relatives, teachers, siblings etc), 

Providing him/her the tools to be able to do so,

Giving him/her enough time and attention which was needed to just hear them out, 

Being that eternal friend, philosopher and guide that he/she might be craving for, 

And 

Most importantly, not imposing our own grown up expectations on the kid, 

Would the crying kid grow up to become the crying adult? 

Well, chances are less, though one can always argue on the pretext of one’s destiny. 

But wasn’t destiny about taking control of our own lives, I wonder!

Source for the Image: https://www.pixtastock.com/illustration/57285109, https://www.vhv.rs/viewpic/hTxRRJm_kid-in-tears-clipart-boy-crying-clipart-png/

Shukran!

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Taking a cue from a very dear friend who has this wonderful habit of saying shukran (Arabic word meaning thank you) every now and then,

And why not,

Especially in these precarious times,

Where one never knows how long one is going to live,

Not just because of Corona but the very manner in which our generation has been consuming pretty much everything on this planet,

Its never enough no matter how many times one says shukran to the people one comes across in one’s life time,

thank you

Be it the parents to start with, who brought us here, nurtured us to become who we are today,

Be it our spouses/siblings/cousins/friends who made this life worth living,

Be it the teachers who acted as friends, philosophers and guides in this journey of acquiring knowledge,

or

Be it the mentors and seniors who pretty much laid the path for us to grow professionally,

We often take it for granted what people have done for us,

We often are drawn into the illusion of having achieved everything unilaterally,

and

We often ignore all the contributions/sacrifices our near and dear ones make for us,

Just to see us happy achieving our dreams and fulfilling our aspirations,

Now,

With no more excuses of being busy or not having enough time,

Why not just say it loud,

Give some form and shape to the gratitude that we all feel,

And take that first step to bringing one’s near-dear ones even closer,

Up for it, are you?

SHUKRAN 🙂

Source for the Image: https://www.multibhashi.com/gratitude-meaning-in-tamil/

गाँधी और बंदर

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बंदरों का हम सबकी ज़िन्दगी में बहुत अहम् रोल रहा है.

चाहे वो हमारा एवोल्यूशन ही क्यों ना हो

या फिर

बुराई को ना देखने का, ना सुनने का और ना बोलने की हिदायत ही क्यों ना हो.

कहते हैं अच्छी चीज़ों पे फोकस करो तो ज़िन्दगी हसीन लगने लगती है,

हर इंसान के अच्छे पहलू पे फोकस करने को डेल कार्नेगी भी लिख गए है.

पर जैसे ही इन किताबों का हैंगओवर पूरा होता है,

और

गांधीजी कहीं किसी कहानी में खो जाते हैं,

फिर वही हम और हमारी क्रिटिकल शक्की नजरिया,

ये ऐसा है,

ये वैसा है,

इसने मुझे ये कैसे कहा,

उसने मुझे ऐसा कह दिया,

मुझे इसने इज़्ज़त नहीं नवाज़ी,

उसने मुझे गरिया दिया,

शिकायती टट्टू बनने में हमें बिलकुल देर नहीं लगती,

आज सुबह जब मैं कैब में आ रहा था,

तब ट्रैफिक में चलते हुए लोगों की आपा धापी देख के मैं घबरा गया,

पहले गुस्सा आया दुनिया के इस रवैये पे,

फिर दूसरे पल मैंने एक चिंता का मखौटा पहन लिया,

चिंता के बाद कुछ ना कर पाने की हताशे में मैं डूबने ही वाला था,

तभी

गांधीजी के तीन बंदरों की छवि मेरे समक्ष आ गयी और मैं हस पड़ा,

pic

इससे मैं टेंशन मुक्त तो हो गया

पर

क्या यही एक रास्ता है इन सब से पीछा छुड़ाने का,

ये विचार करने लगा,

आपको क्या लगता है,

इस बदलते समय में जिस तरफ हमारा देश और दुनिया अग्रसर है,

चाहे वो हो रहे रेप या हत्याएं हो,

चाहे वो सड़क पे बढ़ता हुआ गुस्सा और अग्रेशन हो,

चाहे वो पैसे के पीछे भागने की होड़ हो,

चाहे वो वैल्यू सिस्टम का समाप्त होना हो,

चाहे वो माँ बाप की सेवा करने से हाथ धो लेना हो,

चाहे वो इस वातावरण को तहस नहस कर देने का हमारा व्यवहार हो,

या

चाहे सिर्फ अपने बारे में सोचने की आदत हो,

क्या सिर्फ अच्छे पहलू को देखना ही इसका एक मात्र उत्तर है,

और अगर नहीं,

तो क्या हम सबको अपने अपने लेवल पे एफर्ट करने की ज़रुरत नहीं है,

इस ज़िम्मेदारी को हम सबको समझने की बहुत ज़रुरत है,

जिससे एक अच्छे सोसाइटी का निर्माण किया जा सके,

इसके लिए हमें गांधीजी के उन तीन बंदरों को इगनोर करना ही क्यों ना पड़े,

सवाल बस इतना सा है दोस्तों,

क्या हम खुद से ऊपर उठ कर

इस दुनिया में जी रहे और लोगों जीव जंतुओं के बारे में सोच कर

एक सही सिस्टम के निर्माण का निर्णय लेने को तैयार है या नहीं?

Source for the Image: https://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/other/sunday-nbt/future-stars/three-monkeys-of-gandhi/articleshow/29820353.cms

व्यवहार, ज़िन्दगी का आधार

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It’s said:

No matter how big you grow into,

No matter how wise you consider yourself,

No matter, how careful you are with maintaining public perception,

No matter, how hard you work on your personality,

The way you interact and behave with different stakeholders in your life, determines the real character of the individual,

Be it your wife whom you get to say good morning to each day of your life,

Be it your parents or siblings whom you get to talk to once in a while in this modern world,

Be it the driver who drops you to your office on each working day,

Be it the security guard, who tends to secure your life more than anyone else,

Be it the house maid, who makes your house functional each day,

Be it the office boy, who makes your stint in office comfortable,

Be it the colleagues and boss who tend to make you feel important,

Be it the grocery guy who tend to bring to your doorsteps the fruits of hard work of the farmers in our country,

or

Be it any random guy that you come across in this beautiful journey of life,

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At every point in your life, you get to interact with innumerable people,

on whom: you may or may not consider yourself dependent on;

What qualifies as maturity, is being able to make that all important interaction:

Respectable, 

Enjoyable, 

Valuable, 

and

Treating it as the very last interaction that you will ever get to do in your lifetime.

Not realizing that one day, it will all come to an end,

Be it your ego/persona, 

Be it the luxury cars that you get to sit in or drive,

Be it the assets that you own or aspire to own,

All will vanish in thin air or ether as they refer it to as in Vedic texts.

How soon you realize this and work on that all important interaction is your choice!

Source for the Image: https://newsatjama.jama.com/2014/06/13/cdc-report-highlights-risky-health-behaviors-in-high-school-students/

P2P Competition!

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“You know what, my son Siddharth is doing great in his coaching classes for IIT Jee. Today, his teacher was telling me that he would surely make it to top 100″, says a parent P1 to another parent P2, who is the father of Shreya, who’s Siddharth classmate.

“Oh, is it! That’s wonderful. Shreya is somewhat lagging behind in Chemistry. I just hope she is able to catch up, am a little concerned whether she will be able to qualify the exam”, responds P2.

“You know what, you should start sending Shreya to this wonderful coaching institute in our neighbourhood, if you really want her to succeed”, P1, being a proud parent that he is, is always on look-out to offer free advise to other parents living in the same community.

“I guess, you are right! Let me enrol her in the same program as Siddharth”, conforms P2.

If you are wondering whether P1 and P2 might just be an exception to the rule when it comes to parents demonstrating concerns for their kids, think again, for that’s what you tend to see in majority of parents these days.

What most kids’ routine would look like in today’s competitive world:

5:00 am Good morning

6:00 am Tutor at home, who takes care of kid’s Science and Math lessons

7:30 am Kid goes to school in an air-conditioned bus of the respective school which has curtains, and kids seem to be cut off from the world outside, few among who, spent most of the time in the bus, browsing on the internet, or watching some random video or chit chatting on Whatsapp

3:30 pm School gets over, kid sits in the same bus, comes back home, around 4:30 if he/she is lucky enough and his/her house comes first in the list of the drop-offs

5:00 pm After a quick snack of sorts, kid has some extra-curricular lesson with a relevant tutor coming to the house, be it a piano session or a tabla session, for kids need to excel in not only their studies but also other things, which gives a parent an opportunity to showcase their kid as a trophy of sorts to the who’s who of their society 

6:30 pm Kid goes to a coaching institute, where he/she is supposed to prepare for a competitive exam

8:00 pm Kid comes back to the house, totally drained out, but wait a minute, he/she needs to complete a set of assignments given either by the morning tutor or the school

9:30 pm Kid gets a chance to have his/her dinner and by the time, he/she is able to finish the same, there is no energy left whatsoever to remain awake, yet he/she, courtesy the mobile phone, spends sometime on the same, before falling asleep

family-867

And this continues for the entire year, which goes against the very fundamentals of how a kid should spent his/her wonderful childhood years.

Courtesy the quality of teachers we have in the system, the school system kills the inherent curiosity of a kid, ensuring that he/she is thrown into the rat race from the very moment, he/she is able to perceive the world in a certain manner.

Courtesy the eagerness of the parents to see their kids not lagging behind, the kid suffers tremendous stress, few of them succumbing at times to the same, few who might be lucky enough to not meet the same fate as above, end up spending the wonderful years of their life in a tizzy.

Courtesy the immediate society who are thriving on the vary act of comparison, ensures that the kid, who is so called not able to make it big, ends up going through a mental and emotional trauma, which surely leads to having repercussion in the latter half of their life.

What a waste, I would say!

Just because competing with someone has become the very basis of life, parents have a tendency to put their kid through enormous amount of stress.

Just because a parent considers it as their right to get their expectations fulfilled by their kids, they forget that the very life they have brought into this world is meant to experience and explore, rather than just meeting those man-made targets.

It’s high time that we as a society and parents begin to realise, that what we define as success, is it really the case?

And if not, then why the hell we are bent upon putting our kids through such torture.

My advice:

Calm down parents, be sensible, for this competition among yourselves would end up in being a disaster for not only your kid, but also for the society as a whole.

Source for the Image: http://www.altonschools.org/index.cfm?page=1045

Deciding to Obey!

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Since childhood,

Be it our parents or teachers,

Be it the moral science books,

Be it any other elder in the neighbourhood,

We have been told to obey, for the sheer reason being that all the stakeholders mentioned above have experienced life much more, in terms of no. of years, than what we might have.

Fair enough, some would say!

But few might ask, is this the only and probably the right way to approach any or every aspect of life?

Well, may be and may be not!

obedience-2_opt

May be, because of the communication relationship and the trust that you might have been able to build with the person over a period of time.

May be not, because, unless and until you have experienced it yourself, you might have a tendency to stop being curious and accept it at a surface level.

So, it comes down to whether the acceptance is because of the very concept of obedience or because you decide, having experienced the same, to give your consent to obey.

Considering the kind of argument one gives behind obeying, in a way, influences the way your thought process shapes up.

From a teacher or a mentor point of view, it is extremely important that obedience is a consequence of the decision a kid chooses to take, after having had a complete understanding of the relevant aspect of life.

For, all the kids out there, there is a strong need to delve deeper into what’s being said and ask as many questions as you can, before you decide to accept,

and

For all teachers and parents, the imperative is to encourage kids to be curious and let them explore before expecting them to obey.

Source for the Image: http://dawnhydebooks.com/montessori-how-obedience-and-will-power-develop-in-young-children/

See_the_ME!

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A philosopher once said, “If you really wanna know how a person is, you need to dive deep into the ocean of her eyes, for eyes tell nothing but the truth, if you perceive it well, that is!”

A beautiful thought indeed, though what’s needed is to become a keen and focused observer to understand the very fundamentals of all emotions, be it love or hate and the very existence in itself.

What we refer to as the connect is very much a part of our realisation that each and every matter in this universe is nothing but a derivative of the same cells or particles.

Only if we were to remove the conditioned garb, which we tend to adorn with great pride each day of our lives, would things be perceived more than what it seems to be right now.

pexels-photo-531321

Which leads to a zeal to explore and in turn a possibility of a discovery beyond imagination,

Be it that one moment you would die to spend with the special one of your life,

Be it the cause that you would want to dedicate yourself throughout your life,

Be it spending quality time with your ageing parents,

or

Be it lying in the garden and looking at the beautiful starts.

“For thou shall perceive, what you ought to, and what’s about to happen will reveal what it was all about in times to come!”

Source for the Image: https://www.pexels.com/search/dawn/

Million Dollar Job!

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Let me start by what it is not:

An Investment banker who makes every second of his day count into making loads of money;

A startup tycoon, who has tread the hard steps to become what he/she is today;

An IAS officer who, among all the competition has managed to secure for himself the most coveted of posts;

A Scientist or a researcher, who has to his/her credit numerous published papers and books and might be the most wanted expert in his field;

Wondering, what it could be?

One that most of us have come across possibly each day of our lives for the past whatever years, we have been in existence;

One which most of us take for granted;

One which is nothing but a natural consequence of being here;

One on which we can depend on without the give and take norms of the society;

One which, few amongst us, might have already had the fortune of attaining that status;

Being a PARENT. 

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Comes with lot of pleasure and an ability of being able to act the very agent of the source of creation;

Though, the role, if not performed well, has drastic consequences for not only the life whom we have brought into this world, but also for the society and in turn the ecosystem at large.

What follows just after the birth is a roller coaster where you go through the ups and downs;

Yet, one thing that cannot be taken from one as a parent is the possibility of directing the life into becoming a sensible being;

Which requires a dedicated commitment from the parents for a minimum of 18-20 years, where one tries to make sure that the individual evolves into a sensible being;

Capable of looking beyond what’s obvious and being able to make conscious decisions, which leads the world into a sustainable place to live in;

For few, the very process of parenting results in stress and discomfort; one needs to deliberate the very nature of the same;

What’s needed for a parent is to become sensible himself/herself before one treads the path;

So, just before deciding whether we want to become a parent or not;

Don’t you think, it’s sensible enough to ponder over the very sensibility of the act and the process!