The language they speak

What do you do when you hear 8 and 9 year olds saying the four letter word in your hearing, as well as that of their younger siblings/friends?

Mine is one of total shock. Am I being naive? Is it too much to want to teach children only age appropriate language and behaviour, or is that out of fashion too? How much should we monitor what our children are doing, learning? Does entering preteens and teens mean we can be hands off, expecting they will learn through trial and error, know what is right and wrong? Or, while allowing them to do that, do we also stand guard discreetly so that we guide them to filter and take a course that will help them become more discerning?

How much of unmonitored TV and internet time can be given? Or, is it a convenient tool meant specifically to keep them off our hair? It is just fantasy and will not affect their thinking, and I am splitting my hair unnecessarily by worrying about what they watch?

How relevant are moral stories and stories from mythology? Or are they a legacy of a past best left there? Who remembers them, or has the time to tell them to the young ones? Hand them a book and be done with it?

Visiting elders, friends and relatives? Who has the time? Eating out is so much fun! A trip to the amusement park, more amusing. Just being is too boring!

The perils of parenting are that much more today... Evolving times do bring their own changes. But where does one draw the line? Do Right and Wrong change with time? As parents, isn't it our responsibility to be clear on those lines and ensure we pass them on to the life entrusted to us?

Or is that passe too?

Dedication

Six students of western music - all Americans - from Miami University on an exchange programme to my children's school. What an exposure for the older children who are being taught music and creative writing by these youngsters! There is a festive air all around.

To give them a taste of our culture, they have been taught Tamil (!), dance and Morsingh!

It was lovely teaching them dance and to sing the song they are dancing for! Amazing how they try to execute the steps - though simplified, still difficult as it is classical Bharatnatyam - accurately. A couple of them pick it up in one shot, a couple take some time... But they go back and practice so that "the transitions" happen smoothly.

The greatest delight was when one of the boys got the opening neck and eye movement in one shot. That's when I thought boys should learn to dance too, as otherwise they were planning only for the girls in the group to learn to dance! And now, watching them practice, the organiser of this exchange programme also insists that all of them dance at an event to showcase all that they have learnt in 2 weeks, and all that they have taught as the children of the school will perform too.

Feel very satisfied. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Working with them just drove home the point firmly: One can achieve much - even learning to appreciate the classical art forms - with focus and dedication! I wonder if making everybody learn at least the basics is a good way to make the classical arts popular again in the land of its origin.

Waste - A Mark of Progress

"Waste is the highest virtue one can achieve in advanced capitalist society" - 'Dance, Dance, Dance' by Haruki Murakami. My second book by this author, he had me there as I read these lines.

And he goes on to say how he contributes to this waste by writing articles that take up reams of paper. It resonated with my thoughts.

We write, and we use paper and we cut trees.

We write, and we use our computers and use energy.

The need to speak, to be heard, to share and exchange ideas - a deep-rooted desire that does not go with time. The more we age, the more we have something to say... whether there is anyone to listen or not...


And this waste is just one kind of waste. What to talk of accumulation and display of wealth and material goods? Can anything change so long as our pursuit is measured by external standards? 

Presidential Candidate

FB shows up for what we are - jobless people with too many opinions to share.

I keep getting prompted - Kalam or Patil... And I feel sorry - for Kalam. Why do we hate him so much? So much so that we want him to be head of a completely corrupt, incorrigible state! That he should suffer the agonies of watching wrongs being ignored, rights being overshadowed, and sit back unable to do anything as the mere titular head of state?

What we need - why should I be left behind in expressing my worthless views - is a person who is a prince among thieves, is as brazen as the ruling party(s) in corruption, and can escape any accusations with silence or by turning against the accuser. Is drawn into court cases, but continues to hold office - we need stability, you see. Of course, there are no unturned stones left in corruption - every aspect of our public life seems to be mired in some scam or the other.

Now I know what we need. The man who can be so ingenuous that he can create a scam where none exists!  But maybe, too many candidates for that too?

Then, we would get the man we deserve. And then, maybe, just maybe, people like me will be forced to get out of our armchairs, stop merely observing, commenting and lamenting and do something constructive - bring about a revolution.

Power of Hands

My uncles and cousins would wake up and immediately look at their hands, saying a quick morning prayer.

And then, when in college, I read a novel. Magnificent Obsession. It was part of our course, and a pathetic love story was interwoven with a highly spiritual concept of giving in the fashion of left hand not knowing what the right is giving. The doctor who follows this principal finds that the more he gives and 'meditates' the better his surgeries turn out to be. It inspired me to focus my energies internally - without the element of giving, of course - and the first place I felt a strange sensation was my palms.

Then, after marriage I was introduced to reiki. It is all about channelising the universal energy through the hands, and yes, I can feel something like electricity pass through my palms when I do sit down and close my hands.

Of course, I had been told several times that keeping the palms on the eyes are very good during headaches, and I find that to be true too.

It looks like there are some truths that are common across cultures and situations. Though the manner in which it comes to us is different, the underlying faith is the same.

For, in the end, isn't that what any self-respecting human being believes? That their success and failures is in their hands? The man who can roll up his shirt and get his hands dirty will never go without a shirt?

One Earth: How Green Was My Valley

One Earth: How Green Was My Valley: There were trees and bushes; deer and snakes; mongoose and squirrels; woodpeckers and kingfishers. Today, there is only cement and mort...

High and Dry

Is this an indication of things to come? Chennai is short on petrol and diesel for the last two days. Had to push my bike home, though luckily it sputtered out only in the street corner and not some five kilometers away.

Walked in the sun for an appointment today, and was wondering at how the roads are still filled with private vehicles! Obviously some of the others were smarter and filled their petrol/diesel tanks to the full when the going was good while I was trying to still squeeze the best from reserve.

But as I walked down, I did wonder if we can take our vehicles for granted any more... and our gensets and invertors. The sun and the wind are with us to stay. Imagine the cars being discovered some several centuries from now in the parking spaces, buried under the earth's crust and research being done on what it could have been used for! Maybe a paper with an ad for a car will fly up and they will look and wonder and be amazed at how advanced we had been. Whereas, they would be languishing under the trees, near water sources that would have sprung up afresh and walk long distances, travelling only if needed.

Then they would say, "If they could, so can we," and the quest for the wonder machines would begin afresh and they would develop and advance and cut down trees and clear up spaces and make things that will make them rich and they will cut more trees to make more products so that they can spend those riches...

They will also become developed one day, and find an equivalent of black gold... and history will repeat itself.