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Sharing your past years with your teenagers creates a special bond and makes them share with you their insecurities and fears.
A couple of weeks ago, I took the kids to watch Wonder Park at Metro Cinema in Marine Lines. You can check out the review of the movie here.
But, our fun day did not end there. There was a reason I took them to the other end of the city for a movie, which could be watched much closer to home. Yeah the movie theater experience turned out to be an unexpectedly luxurious surprise, but that’s not why we went so far away.
Opposite the movie theater is St. Xavier’s college, where their Papa and I had met for the first time. We were in the same class, and ours is a college romance. I wanted to show my girls around the college and tell them a few stories about the early days of our relationship.
My older one is fast approaching her teens. I wanted her to be comfortable telling me about all her confusing and tormenting teenage feelings and I’m hoping that one way to do that is to share that part of my life with her. Besides, as both my girls grow up, I would prefer they go awww, rather than yewww when the romantic relationship between their parents is mentioned.
So I showed them the laboratory in which their Papa and I did Physics experiments together, the reading room table at which he explained the prisoner’s dilemma to me, the terrace where he impressed me with his knowledge of tensors, and the canteen where we ate pav bhaji almost every day.
I showed them the balcony at which we first said the three magic words to each other, and told them stories of cutting classes to catch a movie or to go out for ice-creams. There is something about those two century old stone walls that always makes me feel like I am back in those magical, romantic, giddy in love years of my life, and I loved sharing the memories in the appropriate atmosphere with my girls.
I like to tell my older daughter about my own teenage years, in the hope that when she is in her teens, she thinks of me, not as an alien entity from another generation, but as someone who has dealt with the same insecurities and turmoil of emotions that she herself is going through.
Technology may change, and social norms may change, but the basic teenage struggles have stayed the same for generations, and I want her to understand that despite the generation gap, I will be able to empathize with her, and that she can confide in me without embarrassment.
As an added bonus, my older daughter was most intrigued by the Xavier’s campus. The Gothic architecture and the many confusing staircases reminded her of Hogwarts and it made me smile, because when I first read the Harry Potter books about 15 years ago, I had pictured Hogwarts to look somewhat like my old college.
Later I took the girls to a restaurant where their Papa and I had many a special lunch dates.
A version of this was first published here.
Image source: a still from the movie Aamhi Doghi
Kanika G, a physicist by training and a mother of 2 girls, started writing to entertain her older daughter with stories, thus opening the flood gates on a suppressed passion. Today she has written over read more...
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Mostly Normal is a book of innocence, longing, filial love, angst and acceptance, encapsulating a gamut of human emotions within its lightweight edifice. The book touches the human heart and will stay with you.
Some books enthral you till the last page, and then there are those that you stop reading after turning a few pages. Some books are a one-time read, while you carry some books with you long after you have read them. Then, once in a while, a book hits you so close to home that you find it difficult to slot into any category.
I will put Priyadeep Kaur’s Mostly Normal (BookSoul Reads, 2022) in this last bracket.
At a little less than hundred pages, Mostly Normal is a testimony of the power of words to inspire, irrespective of their length.
Most women do not get to live their lives the way they want, on their own terms. So why should they be tied down in their old age?
Every morning, while dropping the kids at the bus stop, I find a grandfather waiting with his granddaughter. I see him again when I fetch the kids. This has been the pattern for the last few years.
He is seen actively participating in his granddaughter’s activities, from morning and evening walks to attending her parent-teachers meeting, sending her for extracurricular activities to even planning her birthday party. He is admired by all. He is appreciated for making himself useful in his old age. People rave that the doting grandfather is doing his duty towards his children and grandchildren. The much-admired grandfather is also a widower, having lost his wife years ago to chronic disease. It’s also to be noted that both his son and daughter-in-law are working parents.
Every day, the onlookers appreciate his sense of duty and dedication. They say that this is how the elderly should keep themselves occupied. They should bring up their grandchildren while their children go off to work.
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