They mocked her puny,
a stick of macaroni —
Patience, mustard seed.
Tag: people
A Simpler Time
If there’s one thing about my childhood that I cherish, it’s the endless sea of tea plantation and me trying to stand straight on a sloping ground that’s more slippery than a bathtub.
I like to think I had happy summers and Christmases there in the Nilgiri where an uncle of mine owned a tea estate. Every time school closed for a holiday we’d pack up our trunks, pick up a truck, and head up the hills. And no matter how many times we’d been up there, round and round the hairpin bends, squashing against each other at steep curves, and spilling juice all over the seats, the trip would be filled with fun and laughter. Plus, when we cousins got together, we’d just hang around and find reasons to drink more tea than usual.
It was a simpler time when ego was unheard of, and adolescent mood swings were in the unseeable future. My uncle’s house was set deep inside an estate, and we’d often take walks around the house exploring unkempt trees and unfamiliar plants. We’d find a new fruit each day only to hear from the well-trained estate folk that we’d discovered poisonous plants. We’d run around barefoot and come home crying with a bruised knee and a guilty-looking cousin. And our biggest problem was coming back before the bears got to us.
But then we got older. What once seemed impossible became the ugly reality. We had grown up, and in the process, lost our innocence to society’s poison that our estate friends failed to warn us about. We drifted apart, seeking joy in movies rather than the open lands. We once walked into dense nature just to live the moment, but as our hair grew, so did our passion for attention, and our attraction to selfies. We are cousins who don’t even visit each other anymore. Some of us married, some happy, some looking, and some others still finding joy in brewing tea.
Life doused our faces with reality, yet the memories linger of a childhood worth cherishing.
Olympics Aftermath
I just read that to glitter for one month, the city of Rio de Janeiro had displaced 80 000 of its citizens.
If that doesn’t shame a country, I don’t know what else does.
The Olympics is a big deal, sure. It’s a mass congregation, the world’s largest sports convention, the holy godmother of all sporting events, yada, yada, yada.
And while the rest of the world saw the sugar, spice, and all other things nice, reality shoved its ugly face on the people of Rio. They wouldn’t have liked the idea of the entire world coming to — taking over, rather — their home.
It’s not just Rio. We saw a similar picture the last time Olympics went to London and Beijing before that. Countless glorious venues now lie barren and play host to a meagre number of tourists. And to make matters worse, the Bird’s Nest costs $11 million a year just to maintain. And nothing worthwhile came off setting up the Olympic Village either.
As for Athens, the first Olympics I cherished, went $15 billion above their budget to put on a show that’s now in disarray and disuse.
Millions of people thrown into the labour of making these stadia, setting up seating, and fitting in lightings— all for attendees staying less than a month. So much time, money, sweat, and blood shed for the vain pride of hosting Olympics. And at the end of glow and show of sportsmanship, the rings get rusty, and we go back to hating each other.
Nothing about the Games was a game to Rio’s now homeless, squashed under its crushing weight.
And here we are, just days after the closing ceremony, complaining on Facebook that another country outperformed us in track events. We should, instead, be ashamed; blinded by our so-called national pride, we ignored a nation that groaned under the pressure of treating us assholes for a fortnight.
We somehow played a part in uprooting the lives of 80 000 people, and that makes me guilty. Some of those people were school children, pregnant women, infants, and single-meal breadwinners. Even budding athletes.
Come to think of it, Rio 2016 (and every Olympics before that) could’ve destroyed a generation of future sportsmen and women.
A Hundred Years Later
“You’re a ghost, Harry,” whispered James.
To Be a Teenager
I once told my mother that I didn’t want her to be my friend. She was my mother, and I wanted her to be just that. But she had got it into her head from some hip self-help book that parents of teenagers should be their friends.
And I didn’t want that. After reading similar emotions on Quora, I realised I wasn’t the only one. And for good reason too.
Teenage is wonderful. It’s when we get to see the world in a new light, experience the pangs of attraction, affection, and even lust. It’s the time to roam around carefree and enjoy life for what it is.
Except, teenage is also when a child goes through a lot of things she doesn’t understand. Like the physical changes in her body, the unpronounceable hormones that show up from nowhere, attraction (or aversion) to people, and (goodness!) mood swings that are just too confusing to comprehend.
What’s more, we’re in the mobile era. The world expects teenagers to know everything; to discuss the latest tech buzz during dinner, finish a 30-inch essay in minutes, do some sort of sport, and break (even Olympic) records that they’ve never heard of before. The 21st century is not the teenager’s haven.
For a child starting out to navigate our conniving society, handle breakups and peer pressure, understand that mom and dad don’t talk to each other, and still perform well in school is too much of an ask.
Their heads are filled with emotions they can’t identify, thoughts they don’t know to express, and doubts they can’t clarify. They’d go to school happy and come back with a broken heart and no clue as to why they feel that way. Is it the teacher yelling at them for a silly grammar mistake, friends getting lunch without them, or that the cute boy in class hadn’t shown up that day? Anything could break their hearts. Because teenage is a myriad of hormones.
That’s why they need direction. They don’t need yet another friend to talk to because their friends have the same problems. What’s more, sometimes they don’t even trust friends.
Teenagers don’t need another friend in their parents. They need advice, instead. They want parents to teach them to handle a situation, not just acknowledge it — as friends do.
Children realise that their parents have already tackled the reins of teenage. And no matter how much they argue, complain, or swear at their parents for imposing a curfew after 10 pm, they know it’s for their good. Deep down, teenagers love their parents for those tiny rules because they know mom’s got their back. After all, a parent is always a stronger authority than a friend.
That’s why teenagers want parents to be parents. Because a mom who’s got her life sorted is motivation for a child to get her’s too.
