Aunt

Believe it or not, sometimes things on WhatsApp can be quite thought provoking. Last night my cousin sent over a beautiful photograph of her family taken at her cousin's wedding in Delhi. They were all looking so bright, festive and just so amazing standing there together as a family. I looked at the four of them for a few minutes and then it struck me- they are probably the closest to me outside of my immediate family and yet there is so little I know about them.

This is my Uncle's family- my mother's brother. Like any older sister, my mother dotes on her little brother and they have always been close. We have spent countless summers with them in my Grandmother's house and now that everyone lives in different cities- FB and WhatsApp are our chief means of communication. We know things like what the other is doing- basic stuff like jobs, vacations, some family news, but somewhere along the way, we didn't get the time to know each other as people. Especially my aunt. I looked at her in the picture and wondered if we didn't know her because she is an "outsider". Sounds funny but is true of so many married women in India. They leave their homes, their identities and move into a whole new family after marriage. Many are given the role of the chief home maker- they take care of everyone, are involved in everything about  the family, but somehow they always have to stay divided- having a maternal home and a married home or a "sasural". They tread that fine line between the two and are most successful when they find a separate role in each sphere.

 I feel like even I never made an effort to know her beyond her role as the wife of my uncle or the mother of my cousins or my mother's sister-in-law.  I don't know her in any way that is separate from my family and how she is a part of that.For example, I don't know if it was her aspiration and guidance that has led both her kids to become very successful professionals in a family of business people. I have no clue whatsoever of her relationship with her siblings or if there is anything major her family is grappling with. If I tried to look for a reason for all this- I can't some up with one, except this is how it is for most people in our culture and Indian society. There is never any true assimilation. Just an alliance that is created when a marriage takes place and the greatest likelihood of peace is to keep the two on cordial, regulated interactions.

This is not a rant against a patriarchal society or a commentary on how women are treated differently. I am pretty sure that my aunt's nephews and nieces would say the same about my uncle if I asked them how much they really knew him. It is just an observation on an irony- how the closest of relationships are sometimes not really that deep and we accept that as a given. 

Regret

I read tales of missing children

I read tales of children missing

I read tales of relationships breaking

I read tales of breaking relationships

I read tales of parents lost

I read tales of lost parents

I read tales of forgotten dreams

I read tales of forgettable "dreams"

All the world is a muddle. Its like we are walking but with our eyes closed, only aware of our own selves. Let's wake up. Let's hold our children, our loved ones so close tonight that if tomorrow we are apart, there maybe pain but no regret.

Family

Saw a great cooking show on Netflix today. So what was so special about it? It was a cooking show where ordinary families cook and compete to win a prize. The dynamics of the families was just fabulous! There was a particularly interesting character of an 86 year old Swedish matriarch of a family who had been married four times and now had a boy friend who was 12 years her junior! Her grand son and daughter just doted on her and accepted that her eccentricities were what made her, her. The other character was a young woman who had come to the show with her mother and husband. She seemed like any ordinary young British lady, but as the competition heated up, not only did her culinary skills blossom but  the camera also brought out her vulnerability and her emotional investment in the show. She and her husband had become interested in cooking through their travels and that had brought them even closer. But clearly for her the competition was a big deal.

The show did a great job of showing how cooking together, or doing anything together as a family is so important. You learn to support, to appreciate, and above all to forgive if a mistake is made- because at the end of it all the family circle and the home should be a place where there is no need to always be perfect. You should be able to be just you and enjoy the love.

Potential

What do we see when we see our children? We see potential, and that is a beautiful thing. Potential is a song that can be sung, a dance that can be danced, a flight that can be soared and a whole epic that can be written.  The life of a child holds the ability to realize so many dreams and the whole world is just waiting for them to come and explore it.

Yesterday I sat there watching Kabir playing the guitar and in my mind I already had him standing on a brightly lit stage, surrounded by thousands of excited fans, who hung on to every note he played. Now, I know that is just a flight of fantasy and he may never become "The Edge" or a Bruce Springsteen or even anything close, but it is my hope that he will pursue something in his life to an extent that he truly masters it and gets recognition as someone who made a difference to the craft. His young mind holds so much potential that it leaves me breathless.

But that also made me wonder- why is it that we only think of children when we think of potential? Why is it that as soon as adulthood settles in, all talk turns to "there was time when I really wanted to...."? Isn't is paradoxical that  we give up so easily on our dreams at a time in our lives when we have far more control of our destinies than we did as children? So what if we do not become maestros or world famous writers, but surely we can enjoy the process. We must first dare to explore our own potential before we ask our children to take the plunge. 

Halloween

It is a BIG deal in our house! And I mean it. Kabir loves every part of it- the decorations, the costume and of course the trick or treating. But this year it also turned out to be something else- a quick pulse check for what is happening around us. While out with Kabir and his friends I noticed that fewer girls were dressed as fairies or princesses than I have seen in the past. Wow- how awesome is that! Not that there is anything wrong with a girl wanting to be a princess who rules her roost or a fairy who has super human powers- but this subtle change just indicated that girls were realizing they could be so much more than that and it would still be okay. Maybe the world is finally waking up to the fact that keeping girls, and by extension women, in pre-cast limited roles just does our race a dis-service. Set them free and you will see that they can be a fairy, a princess, and super girl all rolled into one, and that one can be so much more than the sum of individual parts. Happy Halloween!

Meritocracy

This weekend I read a very interesting piece in the Bloomberg Businessweek about a public High school in New York that boasts one of the highest acceptance ratios into Ivy League colleges across the nation, and has churned out over-achievers who range from Nobel Prize winners to Silicon Valley Millionaires. But that is not the most amazing feature of the Stuyvesant school. What is even more interesting is the fact that you can not buy your way into this school- it accepts students purely on the basis of an entrance exam. It is one of the last standing bastions of pure meritocracy. A place where the color of money is not green- money is colorless and of no use .

But ironically this is also the biggest drawback for the school. Because alumni cannot hope to increase the chance of getting a seat for their kids or family members by contributing to the school, donations are laughable compared to what private schools get and there is in-fighting among multiple alumni associations!

It was truly an eye opening piece to read but the article failed to shed light on a few key points- first- what is it that makes this under funded, American Public School, so special that it attracts such talented young people, and second- even though there is a lack of funding, how come the school continues to succeed in its mission- offering every capable middle schooler an equal opportunity to top notch education- they just have to pass the entrance test. In ignoring these questions the article starts and ends with the assumption that success requires a lot of money, and the lack of it will mean talent will suffer.

Meritocracy needs to be lauded for its power to equalize humans, and strip people of privileges that a pure accident called birth can bestow on some.  It will have its problems because today's capitalist society  that believes "everything has a price" can not fathom its lack of one. It says that some things are not, and perhaps should never be, for sale, and that it's the responsibility of the government to recognize special schools and support them if the alumni will not do so on the school's terms- terms which got them where they are to begin with.

Failure

One of the most heartbreaking things to have to do as a parent is to see your child go through failure. It is inevitable, hard hitting and hopefully a good teacher. Many times you may not even believe some of the nuggets of sportsmanship that you impart to your child and honestly maybe are even more embarrassed than them if the failure was public. But there is no choice- you just have to pick yourself up quickly so that you can catch them as they stumble. That is all part of being the grown up!