To compare or not…

How many of us like to be compared?

Through experience, as a mother and as a counselor, I’ve learnt this extremely significant truth – More often than not, comparison erodes our self-esteem. It does not spare children either. When the going gets tough the trick is to take it bit by bit and just keep moving. When things go swimmingly, compare one’s present with one’s past in the relevant area.

Here goes a real story of how years back comparison was about to spoil it all when good sense prevailed over a mother.

My eight-year-old rushed down the steps in his swimming costume, a mass of energy and enthusiasm, my husband in tow. After an hour, the father returned, looking happy and satisfied. In three days the smile vanished! Within a week my son began coming home with a glum face. What was going wrong?!
“You’re not following Sir’s instructions properly,” the father grumbled to which Dev said meekly, “But I am.”

“He is not concentrating during the class,” my husband complained the very moment I opened the door to the duo next day. My little daughter Vini had been keeping me busy and so I didn’t really know what was going on in the pool. Forever patient with his children, I had no reason to doubt my husband was wrong in judging Dev’s efforts to learn the art of swimming. I didn’t take it very seriously though, and said some words of encouragement. But I thought he didn’t really need that because he was most likely not focusing enough but would be compelled to do so by the trainer soon. There wasn’t any significant change in the next few classes though. Time was running out, because there were to be around twenty classes in this session. Now I felt I had to be a little firm.

“Why aren’t you observing Sir’s movements? Why don’t you be a little sincere sometimes at least?” I asked, peeved. This was because he indeed was a playful boy and his school report card often mentioned that along with his good qualities. “If you aren’t interested, you can pull out,” I said almost angrily, for what was so tough about learning how to swim at this tender age (when the learning curve is at a high in almost anything), that too when a professional was there to teach? He is just not being sincere enough, both of us concurred. Dev’s scowl disappeared as he said “OK, I’ll pull out”. Now that was not something I had seen coming because it was he who had got fascinated

watching his friends swim. I became quiet, hoping he didn’t actually mean to stop midway through his training. 

Nevertheless the comparisons began.

“Riju has learnt quite a number of tricks, why don’t you?” Understandably, the father was frustrated because he was the outdoor games kind of man who had a good sports record during his college days. Dev winced at the comparison.

THAT WAS IT.
At this time or in this case, this comparison won’t help, it’s only making
matters worse, I felt. He was no longer looking forward to the swimming
classes and worse, his confidence in himself was dipping. (Was it a mother’s
sixth sense?) And I could not watch this silently.

The rest is in my book Rays and Rains (e-book available at a much lower price).

Not the stereotyped parenting book - A tour through the book Rays and Rains

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Only if he had got paternity leave

My friend’s mom had told me how decades back her husband had participated in the caregiving of their infant daughters that was a blessing considering that she had no parents or in-laws near her to bank on. (It was possible because of her husband's job profile and the unbiased mind he owned). The scenario, strangely, is not like what it was in her case even today in India, particularly when the husband is working in the IT. Paternity leave (for a reasonable period of time) is still a new concept!

Gender equality as a topic of debate has been there for quite long by now, like feminism. Without going into all that, doesn’t it sound right when we hear of a new father doting on and caring for his new-born as much as the new mother is?

My husband was the pillar after my son’s arrival to the world. Suffering from colic, my first-born routinely cried and screamed, turning red, as I clenched my fingers and thought hard if there was anything we could do to alleviate his pain, tormenting me every time his face was racked with pain. It was my husband who began taking us out in the car, baby and me, driving round and round the neighbourhood during those times (colic pains visited our son mostly after sundown) and miraculously the crying would stop, providing the much-needed relief to my frayed nerves! All thanks to Internet where he had searched to come up with such novel ways of handling colic attacks. And when within a week, our little Dev was found to have dust allergy with even the cotton mattress inducing severe cough, it was the father again who sat sealing the mattress inside a plastic cover with stitches all along the border, till the wee hours of the morning, I supplying with only little help, intermittently.

The new father, delirious with happiness, would definitely have loved to lend a hand in the regular baby-care matters like feeding and preparing his feeds (Dev could not suck properly initially and often ended up being half-fed by me), only if he had got paternity leave. My husband made up though by religiously dedicating the evenings to baby-sitting no matter how tired he was after the long drive from his office through traffic-congested roads.

When my daughter was born, the born-again father was now a much busier man, but managed to give me enough support at the hospital and once again, after a gap of six years, devote the evenings to the new baby with the same, familiar dedication. And this time he even played a mother to our son (who felt more left out than thrilled with the arrival of a sibling, a girl to his dismay) by taking him out and treating him to zoo visits and restaurant food just the way I used to before I got heavily pregnant with our little Vini. Well, that was definitely a big leap from the times of my mother-in-law whose husband visited her at the hospital two days after their first child was born, lest he earned the label of ‘a too-doting father’ from their neighbours!

When a baby arrives, a father is needed as much as a mother is – not only for the baby but also for the new mom who too needs to adjust to her new life as much as the baby needs, in fact even faster.

The rest is in my book Rays and Rains (e-book available at a much lower price).

Not the stereotyped parenting book - A tour through the book Rays and Rains

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Success of course, but what else along with that?

Today, most of us are obsessed with success. We are motivating the kids (as teachers/tutors/parents) to put in their best and succeed. We are delighted when they bring in the shining scores, and secretly, but briefly, feel guilty when we see them regularly sacrificing their play-hours for tuition classes. We hope that delivering to the best of their abilities becomes a habit for them. 

How do we teach them now to put in their best, but without being exploited, when they would be working as executives some years later?

The story of two brothers!

“I told Ron to erase his ‘e’s for they resembled ‘i’s. He refused after two unsuccessful attempts,” Minnie, my neighbor said resignedly, adding after a short silence, “Paul would rub his letters even ten times whenever I told him to.” Ron and Paul are her two sons, five years separating them.

Ron is a happy-go-lucky, bold six-year-old who comes across as a precocious boy, speaking his mind and not hesitating to shout at his closest pals whenever they don’t see eye to eye or whenever his tank’s tap of patience (quite tiny) runs dry or whenever his opponent in a game, the two are playing, is slow. Bright that he is, his age is too less to help him understand that he is gifted and most are not.

His brother, Paul, eleven years old, has always been the industrious, quieter kind of boy who is happy with his school books and outdoor sports. Overly sensitive about praise and criticism, he goes all out of his way to please his parents, keeping his calendar blocked for five different hobby classes for the five week-days, if his mother thinks it necessary. He doesn’t seem to mind the grind he goes through and the free time he is denied, things his peers and friends are unfamiliar with, all because he knows very well how all this makes his mother happy. He is not the one to break her heart in the smallest way.

What do you call this? Is it obedience? Respect for parents? Or is it that he doesn’t have a mind of his own? Or is it a desire to be better than he can be? Or is it a great desire to stay in his mother’s good books? Ron’s only drawback is – his over-confidence. Paul’s is – his hypersensitivity. Ron believes he is always the best. Paul believes he is not doing enough if he is not excelling in whatever he does and mopes about when his performance doesn’t keep him in the top bracket. Ron doesn’t care about stress. He is never stressed-out. Paul is often stressed-out – he takes too many things in his plate and tries to juggle them all with panache.

It’s a little too early to predict what future holds for each of them if the two brothers continue to be what they are. Certainly, childhood is moving a bit fast for Paul. But how does that translate to real life? How do you think he’ll handle expectations of people around him?

The rest is in my book Rays and Rains (e-book available at a much lower price).

A tour through Rays and Rains

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It began filling a home years back...

Have you found your child very hyperactive? Did you try exploring with your child what could keep him or her happily engaged as well as calm down over time? You better be prepared to be surprised to see how such an activity can help your child no longer be an annoyance to the teacher.

Here is a mom writing to her son about her experience when she began to explore and how she discovered some truths…

My dear son,
You may not be aware, but every day when the sun is down and you are back from your play-session, I cannot wait for you to settle down with your keyboard. If you are wondering why, it’s because evening-time is not only the time of your daily tryst with music, but also mine. You have been an active child right from your infant years, often loving to test my endurance limit by playing pranks and fidgeting around when the need is to focus and study. I have tried everything, from coaxing to explaining to admonishing, to make you sit a little longer with your books, but they have yielded only temporary results. It would have continued on this note, had it not been for my chance discovery of your love for music. Of course, the first credit goes to your Computers teacher who observed you and came up with the suggestion to involve you in a hobby activity that calms you down.

I can still recall how you sat still, interested and observant, as your music teacher gradually introduced you to the world of *“Saa-reh-gaa-maa” (equivalent of Do-re-me-fa) and how your eyes gleamed and your face shone with a newfound passion when your fingers set about mastering tune after tune every week. Well, to say I was surprised would be an understatement. I was clearly amazed at how music was playing its magic on you, moulding you, and changing you. Yes, changing you slowly. You just seemed to be transported to a new world where even small noises wouldn’t be distractions for you anymore. 

As your rendezvous with tunes continued, there was something I discovered about myself too - I too have a deep love for music and that it runs deep in me, maybe a little too deep for even me to be aware of it. If music calms you down, it soothes me. If music helps you kill boredom, it rejuvenates my tired mind. If music helps you get focused, it is something I can no longer do without. What is it that sowed this love for music in me? My schooldays rushed back to me as scenes of songs being played out from our school piano went flitting by before my eyes.

There was the song “Peace is flowing like a river…” that helped us unwind after grueling English lessons. Then there was “We shall overcome….” That charged us up and helped us put in our efforts for preparations when the exams came calling. “When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed….” let us know that life is not a bed of roses alone, there are thorns too and when the thorns prick, we can think of the roses that we had admired.

Love for songs, love for music had secretly grown in me decades back. Today, as the notes keep floating down to me from your room, I feel blessed – not only for these blissful evenings that you gift me with, but also because I’ve discovered my intense love for music.

The rest is in my book Rays and Rains (e-book available at a much lower price).
A visit to Rays and Rains

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Why are children far away from India being exhorted to rise up to the challenge of Indian children habitually staying far ahead in the race?

How much should we retain from our time-tested methods of learning vis-à-vis how much are we actually still holding with us against this great wave of ‘modern methods’ of learning? 

How much should we absorb from the new, modern method of learning that seems to sweep many Indian parents off their feet, without letting go of the proven Indian ways of learning?

While facing the teacher during parent-teacher-meetings, how much are we ready to accept our children’s flaws as we keep nodding fondly at their strengths being highlighted? How much grit do we have to face the truth and do something about it?

Here goes the story of a boy and his mom....

My son became a Fourth Grader and strangely did not want to contest the election for the post of prefect in his class this time. He said he had had enough of it. Chatty that he always has been, the duty of keeping discipline in the class came as an unwelcome item in the list of responsibilities. There were noticeable changes in him that year and the next. Even the way his teachers looked at him was different now. Their eyes did not light up when I attended usual meetings with them for them to brief me up about his progress. His comprehensive profile was mediocre. Something did not seem to be right. Was it a mother’s sixth sense? I gave repeated visits to the school to get reassured by his teachers. They hinted that he is a bit lazy, not forgetting to add that he has very good application skills. “He does get carried away by the pranksters of the class, but is a gem of a boy.”

They did not mention that he could do much better than he was doing. Some almost hinted that I was being a too concerned mother. But something inside me told the red signals were showing and I had to take notice of them. It took me quite some time to realize that teachers had not been forthcoming enough about the transformation in him. It took me a year to realize why this was so. 

My one-year stint as a teacher in a school put things in perspective. In a bid to not hurt parents’ feelings, teachers today are far more polite and do not readily talk about a child’s shortcomings. Moreover, to keep boosting the children, they speak about their strengths, while merely mentioning their weaknesses. Sadly, if your antennae are not ‘up’ to catch the subtle messages they pass on, you miss something important, something that could direct your child right towards the goals you and he have envisioned.

When I look back at my days in school, I can’t help but admire the way my teachers did not mince words. They were not worried about if what they said hurt their pupils’ self-esteem. Bitter words do hurt, but only for the time-being, and help in the long run, provided they are taken in the right spirit. Were my parents hurt if some not-so-encouraging remark was made about me? Definitely they were not. They were concerned. They immediately reprimanded, if necessary. Did my parents doubt my teachers about their opinion of me, if my teachers felt I wasn’t doing my best? No. Were my parents any different from other parents? No.

The rest is in my book Rays and Rains (e-book available at a much lower price).
Rays and Rains

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A quiet, sensitive daughter, feeling disconcerted by her mother’s responses to certain incidents, wouldn’t open up …

Sunaina was dismayed that her daughter Nila has been hiding vital information from her for long. Recently she found Nila's highly expensive gold ring in a corner of her house very unexpectedly. What rattled her was the fact that Nila hadn’t spoken a word about it to her though she was aware of its sudden disappearance. Feeling confused, she shared with me how helpless she felt when she saw her daughter did not share her own feelings and fears with her at all.

The complete story:

Sunaina was distraught that her daughter Nila had always been hiding vital information from her. Dismayed, she poured out her feeling of helplessness as she narrated how she had spotted Nila’s highly expensive, newly-gifted gold ear ring in the corner of a room of her house one morning very recently. Nila, married and settled far away from her home in Bangalore, had come down to spend a few weeks with her parents.

Sunaina has been a working mother all through and has never been able to spend sufficient time with her daughter. The regret remains hidden somewhere inside her that surfaces for a while whenever she narrates to me any incident of her life that leaves her wondering why, at different points of time, her daughter didn’t speak up and share her worries even when she was right near her.

As I empathized with her, I asked her how she responded when such unpleasant events occurred, unexpectedly, in her life. She fumbled for words and so I helped her analyse her own behavior by recalling if she had given herself to outbursts of anger or had become very tensed or nervous. Slowly, through a series of questions from me and her replies, she realized that the anger and acute tension she felt and showed on such occasions had caused huge discomfort to Nila in turn.

By nature quiet and not expressive, Nila had kept the news of the loss of her ear ring to herself instead of sharing it with her mother. Sunaina thought Nila knew she would lose her peace of mind the moment she would hear about it.

Here was an opportunity for Sunaina to look deep within herself and to think about her responses to certain events in her life. She felt she needed to work on herself when it came to expressing her anger with something or somebody. Also, when it came to facing a particularly challenging situation, she indeed would benefit if she knew how to face it better, she felt.

Considering she is mostly time-starved, I gave her a few simple and quick tips:

·        *Keep taking deep breaths.

·        *If possible, leave the place, where the event has occurred or the person whose presence is causing you discomfort/tension, for a while.

·        *Get busy doing something simple, preferably with your hands.

·        *When you feel a little calm, you may return to taking up the issue that was bothering you deeply.

Sunaina no longer complains about her daughter. Now she knows what tools she possesses to deal with a situation, the kind of which had her at its mercy in the past quite often and wreaked havoc in her fast-paced life by impacting her relationship with her family suddenly and swiftly now and then.

(I came in touch with Sunaina  when I was having a session with an old lady who was mourning the sudden loss of her doctor brother, much before Sunaina approached me recently for help.)

I'm glad if my post has touched you. Since I have the constraint of returning home well before my daughter is back from school, I cannot give myself to counseling as much and also as often I'd like to. So maybe your sharing of my experiences with my counselees, with your friends, and you asking them in turn to do the same, could compensate for that a little bit at least.

A click here takes you to where I dream, explore, create, express to reach out to you and others through you

Water, not too much, not too little, at the right moments, for every sapling within my reach

The thought behind the birth of my creation “Rays and Rains”:

Very happy was the potter,
In her hands she held the soft clay.
She sat down in earnest,
to shape it into a pot within a day!
Later she left the wheel aside,
for it wasn’t really very soft, the clay,
She has begun shaping with her fingers,
and learning many truths along the way.
It’s quite tough, but she won’t give up and go away,
for she knows, with efforts, it will be a pot some day.
It may be perfect or maybe not,
“I enjoyed it and did my best”, one day
the potter would proudly say.

A little of a potter and a little of a gardener - that is how I feel about myself now. Whether it is my daughter, my son or any of my young counselees, every time I interact with each one of them, I know I'm touching a sapling. The sapling is growing. If I pour too much water over it, it could droop. If I pour only a little, it could get stunted. If I pour the right amount, but at the wrong time, that too would impact its growth.

I am a mother. And I am a counselor.

Every morning arrives with a golden opportunity for me to spray water, not too much, not too little, over each sapling within my reach, at the right moments.

The rest is in my book Rays and Rains (e-book available at a much lower price).
Rays and Rains
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A basketful of experiences at a rehab centre near B.G. Road, Bangalore

The second part of this series features at Why do they throw away a life that was going hunky-dory?

As a counselor and as an interviewer….

Life can indeed take strange turns at the most unexpected moments for inexplicable reasons for someone. This truth has been staring at me from time to time whenever I visit a centre for rehabilitation of addicts to talk to the people there as a part of my counseling journey. My sessions there with people from different backgrounds give me a view of a different world – a world unknown to most people around us. At the centre, some of the inmates are alcoholics, addicts and into substance abuse.

Why does someone veer off the track he was walking on and allow himself to go astray and ‘fall’ before the public eye? What are his internal struggles? When he finally does pick up the pieces, and aim to come back on track, how do people around take it? How does it in turn affect his morale?

My own conversations with some inmates over a few months and a recent interview with the chief official there gave answers to many questions that have hovered in my mind and many minds for long.

The following questions and answers carry the essence of my talks there as a counselor and the conversations as part of the interview (I've kept it shorter and simpler through editing). The answers carry answers to multiple questions, though not in the exact order in which I asked them during my counseling sessions with the inmates and during the interview of the chief official.

Why and when do they start going astray? Is there a usual trend seen amongst them? Is it linked with the economic background etc?

It can happen at any age. Nowadays, even boys in their teens are falling prey to this habit. Some of them are school-dropouts. There are middle-aged men too. They are a few old people too. People from different economic and social sections of society come to the centre. They can succumb to the ‘disease’ without any logical reason. It may have triggered from a failed relationship or a failed marriage. It can be owing to being unemployed and idle. It can be because of influence of friends going astray.

Under what circumstances do their relatives come to get them admitted here?

When they get violent or act in an extremely unacceptable way under the effect of alcohol/drugs/substances, they even hurt their near and dear ones mentally, psychologically and physically. Sooner or later, sometimes in the very next morning, it is all flushed out of their mind. They are in no mood to believe how unreasonably they have behaved and how much hurt they have caused to their near and dear ones repeatedly over a period of time.

Sometimes they get alienated from their family and friends which brings about a quicker ‘fall’. They lose focus completely and literally do not know what to do with their life because it is already in a mess.

It is under these circumstances that they are brought to the centre.

What is the mental state of the addict during admission to the centre?

When the addict is brought in for admission, he is consumed with resentment and anger. If he is a father, he still loves his child and is thus furious that his wife, with help of family, has taken the audacious step of keeping him away from their child. He does not realize that he has been a nuisance to and a burden for the family instead of having been a support.
If he is a young, unmarried man, he is extremely annoyed and bewildered that he has been left behind by his parents here.

Does his mental state undergo any change over time? How does it undergo change? How fast or slow is it?
As he begins to follow a schedule in the centre, away from alcohol/drugs/substances, he begins to feel better in every way. His appetite returns. He sleeps soundly. His mind gets clearer. He is again able to think logically. It dawns on him that there can be a life without alcohol/drugs. The truth glares at him – he has been irresponsible. He begins to feel that he has let his family down. He has caused them misery to no end.
Then his ego begins to overshadow the thoughts. It provokes him to think that he is not the culprit, that he had no option but to resort to drugs/alcohol because of certain events or certain unreasonable people in his life.
There begins a struggle in his mind between his new self and his ego. And there begins a transformation. It is a very difficult stage of his life when he realizes that he should mend his ways, but does not have the courage and determination to. This process of self-introspection, realization and transformation happens at its own pace. Some people leave the centre at the end of three months, while some take more time.
But for people who have been brought by family under some condition (as a sort of bribe), the transformation does not usually take place. When they go back to their familiar environment, and see that the condition is not being met by the family, they tend go back to their old ways.

How does the centre help the inmate go back to the normal way of life?

A rigid time-bound schedule from early morning till night ensures that every inmate follows a routine. A good healthy diet throughout the day everyday helps him feel healthy from inside. Regular health checks by visiting doctors and psychiatrists and face-to-face sessions with visiting counselors give a boost to his mental health.
After some days of staying ‘clean’ at a stretch, when he is feeling much sober, his family visits him. This is termed as ‘family confrontation’ during which he interacts with his family and understands all the more the huge ordeal his near and dear ones have gone through again and again, owing to his addiction.
This is followed by a solitary confinement when he is suggested to self-introspect.
The next stage is the group discussion, when he is given a forum to share with the group his past and how he feels about it and how he intends to pick up the pieces of life to move on. The other group members too, do the same. Since during family confrontation before the self-introspection, some other inmates were told to be present as mute spectators, they too act as witnesses during the group discussion. This does not allow him any room for telling lies about himself or the circumstances under which he took to alcohol/drugs.

When the realization finally comes to him that now the time has arrived to mend his ways and he finally feels he can and should begin working in that direction, he has dealt with his ego at last. He is given permission to walk out of the centre when his family comes to pick him up. (Sometimes there is a relapse. It could be because of the fact that he was brought here in the first place under some condition that is not possible to satisfy, which he realizes, when he is out again.)

I'm glad if my post has touched you. Since I have the constraint of returning home well before my daughter is back from school, I cannot give myself to counseling as much and also as often I'd like to. So maybe your sharing of my experiences with my counselees, with your friends, and you asking them in turn to do the same, could compensate for that a little bit at least.

A click here takes you to where I dream, explore, create, express to reach out to you and others through you

Case Studies from a Counselor's cabin

Relationships can run or ruin a world!

------------When the communication channel is not there---------

Samira has been alienating herself from her mother right from her teen years. Roshni, her mom, having been a time-starved working mom all through her life, neither had the inclination to work on the fragile relationship, nor had the time. Samira felt neglected and as a young adult she was not on cordial terms with Roshni. The relationship, worsening each day, needed repairs.
Initially hesitant and sometimes rude during my sessions with her, Samira started opening up gradually. Our rapport started building during our talks on her family life, her friends’ circle and what she felt about life. Her anger and bitterness over Roshni’s neglect towards her and unkind behaviour over the years began pouring out.
I empathized with her just as much as I refrained from judging her. Over time, through our sessions, realization dawned on her that Roshni actually cared about her though she could never express it and that her frustration for never having had sufficient family time made her an embittered person. Now less agitated and more matured, Samira doesn’t brush aside her mother brusquely any more. A new relationship has just begun.

------------When comparison does more harm than good----------

Ruby, a sensitive pre-teen, is no longer quiet and often gets into loud verbal battles with her mother, Ajita. Well-educated, Ajita quit work since she felt Ruby needed her at home though of late she felt Ruby was not grateful or respectful towards her. A session with Ruby helped me know that she is raring to grow out of her shell, wanting to have her own space and her own free time. During my sessions with Ajita, I empathized with her as she shared how sad and angry she felt for being taken for granted by Ruby and that Ruby’s stubbornness and lack of ambition came in the way of her being an achiever in different areas. It became increasingly clear that Ajita herself was under pressure of seeing Ruby a great performer everywhere. Ruby, though a topper in school wasn’t focusing enough on anything, she felt. Through our interactions over days, Ajita realized that continued comparison with Ruby’s peers actually didn’t inspire Ruby to get focused and Ajita needed to go easy on her by beginning to let her handle her tasks. This way, Ruby would know that she had to begin taking charge. Ajita is now getting ready to let Ruby face the outcome of her own attitude and actions and start taking the first steps towards becoming responsible.

I'm glad if my post has touched you. Since I have the constraint of returning home well before my daughter is back from school, I cannot give myself to counseling as much and also as often I'd like to. So maybe your sharing of my experiences with my counselees, with your friends, and you asking them in turn to do the same, could compensate for that a little bit at least.

A click here takes you to where I dream, explore, create, express to reach out to you and others through you

What's the big deal?

A famous ex-president of India had once observed we are very much into collecting foreign products. (It’s almost a kind of craze with us, I guess). He said - Self-respect comes from self-reliance.

I can afford it.What's the big deal?

I was away at work while it was one of those days when my four-year-old wasn’t feeling on top of the world. When my in-laws could no longer handle a cranky grandchild, they had to take resort to a brand new model of a bulldozer (on my suggestion over the phone) kept ready for him in a cupboard stocked in advance with a few toys…..A friend once remarked out of surprise, on seeing me purchasing gifts for my son quite often, “Are you sure you are not getting him too much? It may not be all that good for his creativity, you know.”
..............................................................
A famous ex-president of India had once observed we are very much into collecting foreign products. (It’s almost a kind of craze with us, I guess). He said - Self-respect comes from self-reliance. Often, without batting an eyelid, we shell out thousands for a branded toy that is from a foreign manufacturer, never or rarely sparing a thought for the local toys coming from manufacturers striving to make their mark in this toy industry or like the Channapatta wooden toy makers from our very own India are struggling for survival.

Ever wondered why topics like child obesity, childhood diabetes and reduced academic performance never made it to the news in the past? It’s a pity, but many young children of our city guiltlessly settle for an hour of gadget-time in lieu of an active hour in the midst of friends in fresh air in the park or playground that would do tons of good to their brain and body. What about social skills? Aren’t they getting neglected? What about the lazy hour spent with the toy alone? Or an hour spent before the screen with Nintendos or PS2s&3s? With famous companies investing time for research and money to come up with exorbitantly priced (but highly addictive for the young children of impressionable age) gadgets for today’s rich parents to quickly grab them to give them the feeling “This will keep my child happy,”, the laws of toy-making art has slowly but silently changed – a strong skill that inspired creativity in children has been stolen by the money-making toy manufacturers of today.

And now realization dawns on me when I am reminded of how my father scouted the markets for days to get a wooden toy for my son on his birthday, not falling to the temptation of numerous branded toys made of plastic. Was he trying to pass on a strong message to all of us?

Maybe we could go for a balanced mix of reasonably priced branded toys (that do not encourage long, sluggish hours at home on a chair) and locally made toys that promote the inborn creativity in children and inspire them to come up with better versions of them on their own (with a little bit of science acquired from books and school).

Is it only to appease the child or is it also to feed our ego that we go for pricey toys? “Yes, I can afford it, so what’s the big deal? For the people raising a hue and cry over it, it’s just ‘Grapes our sour’!” and disdainfully we can walk away, shaking our heads at how a storm is being created over a teacup.

After I left work, it took me quite some time to realize I had perhaps been on my way to creating a Frankestein in my own home. I thought it strange that my son still hankered for toys even though I was at home and he got my company. Fact is the damage had already been done! Addiction to toys had already set in, something that I had unwittingly created in him! It took more than a year for some sense to prevail on him.

The rest is in my book Rays and Rains (e-book available at a much lower price).
A trip through Rays and Rains
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