Saturday 13 August 2011

The Inexplicible Truth

     It never fails. Your snack-attack which lasts about every 10 minutes has finally reaped fruit. Whenever you eat something, is the time when your relatives feel the need for visiting your house. And when you are secretly eyeing the delicious, mouth-watering edibles tacked in the kitchen, feeling the smack of your mother's fingers on your head,"Leave it for the guests!", while you stare up at her, what guests? And go to bed to dream of the grub lining the cabinets of the scullery like soldiers.Well, it couldn't attract more Murphy's Law  could it?                                                                                                                             First, your mother's aunt telephones that she is just minutes away from your house along with her three devils and has called to "inform" you about their stay, "By the way, your house has a green gate or a black one?"......when there is no food in the house! You regret having to eat that large bag of Cheetos while listening to your mother searching for it. You quietly tell her about its present state (empty and rumpled in the dust-bin) and amidst her shrieks of anxiety on account of having no chow in the house, set about opening a stale packet of biscuits. The situation can't get any worse when "she" arrives. While watching her three kids scramble about like monkeys, your mother's aunt sweetly says,"Oh! Boys will be boys. Watch around for them will you?" You nod your head like a jack-in-a-box while pondering over the merits of being single and unmarried.
    Just then the telephone rings (again!) and you are hit with a revelation....today was your best-friend-for-life's birthday! How could you have forgotten? You hm and aah over the other end, listening to why she is a better friend than you while keeping your eyes on the look out for the three musketeers. You think, you could always surprise her next year. 
   The death-eaters close around you sucking away your happiness as you put down the receiver and obtain your formal job. Just then the door-bell rings (again!) and by peeking through your fingers you see a horde of relatives swarm in like bee's, heading for the main door. You mom has a permanent smile etched on her face while you know she is thinking exactly the same thing. "Oh God! Couldn't they have at least told us before hand that they were coming?", while you add, " None of them showed up on my birthday!". Sandwiched between two relatives while trying to keep the little ones at bay you think, maybe it's just one of those days.
Just as when introduced to your cute distant cousin, it's best not to exclaim and point out, "Oh, glad to have you here but our fridge is a bit under-stocked."

Thursday 4 August 2011

Mum! Can You Walk in my shoes for a minute??

          To all those who are reading this right now, dont't think that I would ever want to get a 2-hour lecture after my mom finds out my dirty and not to mention, filthy sneakers. Speaking literally, our parents dont seem to understand us. This is the litany every parent is beseeched by from their kids. And specifically speaking, teenagers. Because as this is an unforgotten fact among our older generation that parents and their kids live on entirely different planets. Our parents used to come home to a close-knit family, a homely family dinner, relatives swarming in like bees and all in all a happy, non-technical atmosphere. Today, kids come home to computers, laptops, nintendoes, play-stations. Dinner is in front of the television. Kids have acssess to I-phones and ipods and ipads and are so engrossed into it that they dont even have the time to face their parents, let alone tell them about their day. Its like a joke that I tease my parents about like "Hey! Did you guys fall asleep 60 years ago and woke up today? Just like Rip Wan Vinkle?
         "Times have changed! The world you were living in is no more!" These sentences probably sound a bit harsh but what can you say when your dad does not even try to understand the world you live in? Kids in the olden days used to bow to their parents each and every wish, from the clothes they buy, what should they eat to whom they should get married to. Nowadays, kids tend to question each and every obligation of their parents. Why? Because each generation is different from the next. The people living before they did were probably more old fashioned and different people. And the generation after my generation will probably be...well...helluva lot! But, seriously, my dad was a top student in Biology and still he's not clear with the definition of "Evolution"?
            Just yesterday I was watching Freaky Friday in which the souls of a mother and her teenage daughter are transferred into each others bodies which led to me thinking that how blissfully easy it would be that parents understand the world of their children AND their children understand theirs. Parents are not the only ones to blame you know.
            Growing up with their children is one of the best things a parent can do. Learning about them. What they like to do, how they think, what are their opinions, realizing their children are not complete replicas of them. Sadly, parents today don't do that. Speaking personally, my dad talks to me a lot. A lot. But he does'nt really know me. He thinks i'm so shy that i can't even go and buy a thing in a shop. He wouldn't expect a BIG thing from me like going up on a platform and speaking. But, the situation that i have seen in other families really devastates me. Parents dont even care to listen if their child wants to say something. "Dad! I want to speak something really very important!" and the "Dad" is staring faithfully at his beloved television screen where arsenal is beating manchester united's butt. "Mom! Will you please listen to me for a second?" and the "Mom" is talking (as usual) on the phone, probably gossiping about her next-door neighbour.
           Parents are a unique species found on this Earth. You cant live with them, you cant live without them. I once read somewhere (ok it was in an old readers digest, cutting out the "somewhere" crap) that:
Human Beings are the only species who let their children come home
       As far as they are the most and only loving, sincere and caring people in this world, they tend to be tad contradictory. First they smother their child with love, affection, care and cuddles (nothing wrong with that) but in that process they dont (some, speaking in a general perspective) show their child what the outside world looks like. What sort of people there are, what sins and bad things are being dont in this world. Most parents dont even tell their child about sexual abuse, forgetting that the problem lies in not talking about it. They hide so many things from their children. But when their off spring grows up and is ready to face the world, they push their child out with a vigorous passion, not thinking that their "embryo" does not even know half the things a mature person should be aware of.
            In my house, my sister who is five years older than me is the "zygote". Not a fetus, not an embryo, not even a fertilized egg. She is the zygote, which makes me extinct. Im not even been born yet. In my own house. My grandmother spoils us literally so much, from serving us at the table, making breakfast for us to even fetching a glass of water for us anytime. But nevertheless she does say sometimes, "Now you two are grown up. You should do all your work by yourself!" While me and my sister stare at her with our mouths hung wide open. Isn't that just totally, freakinly and seriously creepy?
        I once went to a museum where a saw a picture of three chimpanzees. Big...bigger.....and biggest. All of them sitting in a row, picking out and eating the nits and lice of their younger generation. Maybe thats what our parents do. Eat out our problems and worries and not understand them. Swallow them without chewing and tasting them. Maybe thats one of the evidences that man is a descended from an ancestor similar to the new world monkey.