Though uneducated herself,
grandmother took keen interest in my studies.
This meant a stream of tuition teachers every evening after school. She had a pandit
to teach me Hindi. I had to appear for
private examinations in this language and hated it as I was the only one in my
peer group to be subjected to this ordeal.
God knows what inspired grandmother to make me learn this language but I
am now grateful to her. My facility with
spoken Hindi has been a great asset to me as a management trainer. I could also coach my sons when they studied
in Central School where Hindi was the medium of instruction! Sometimes I wonder why every generation
resents what the previous one prescribes.
It is such a self destruct attitude. Grandmother had arranged for a
music teacher and I threw a fit, refusing to learn because Gopal and Vasuki
threatened to move out rather than ‘suffer’ my singing! How I regret my stupidity. I loved music and would listen with rapturous
attention when my uncle Prasanna, a radio artist, practiced at home, before a
performance. There was a blind singer at
the temple near the Mysore Palace, who often came home to sing for his
living. I would squat before him and
drift into a dream world of musical notes as his mellifluous voice soared. Somewhere deep within was this yearning to
learn classical music, which I now fulfill, learning to play the Mandolin
****
It was pretty lonely at my
grandparents’ place, I missed my parents and my little siblings.They were all
in Secunderabad where my father, a doctor in the army, was posted. They lived with my mother’s parents. On holidays, I would sit on the window sill
facing the gate of the house and imaging it opening – my little sisters and
brother running towards me to be hugged.
Dad would ruffle my hair. I could
feel his palm on my head – Ma would tweak my cheek.
My heart cried out for my dad and ma
whom I saw only when they came for summer holidays or when I visited grandpa in
Secunderabad. Uncle Gopal and cousin Vasuki
were fun but they had their own agenda and playing with a gawky little girl was
not on it! I had friends – Veena, my
school buddy, Chandrika my next door neighbor – but I wanted my sisters and
brother. Deep within, I have yet to come
to terms with having to be away from my parents when I longed to be with them
and my siblings. A child’s greatest
comfort is the warmth of her mother’s arms around – kissing away the pain of
wound-cheering small achievements – tenderly wiping a fevered brow.
Grandmother took care of my
creature comforts and I always had a lion share of any goodie, being the
youngest. But I would have rather shared
the same with my siblings than eat alone.
I hated eating alone. Grandmother
would serve me lunch and go to her room to lie down, weary after a hectic
schedule. Thatha would be having his
afternoon nap while Gopal and Vasuki would be away at college. I would play alone in the large dining room,
pretending to be with my siblings, cajoling them to eat-singing songs for them,
telling the stories of the Big Bad Wolf – scolding them for being naughty and
not listening to their akka
Parents should never leave their
children with others to take care of them.
It gives the child a feeling of rejection. I remember going to a movie – Pyar ki Pyas (thirst for love) when I was
thirteen, with my cousins. It was about
a little girl adopted by a childless couple who later are indifferent to her
when they get a baby. I cried throughout
the movie-all the way back home-all through the night and the next day. I saw the same movie thirty years later on
the TV and cried all over again.
Somewhere inside me is that little girl who looked out of the window
looking longingly at the gate-wishing her parents would walk in. My heart goes out to all those children
abandoned by parents, for whatever reason.
A child does not ask to be born.
When a couple brings a human being into the world, they must do
everything to make the person feel wanted and secure. Growing up with parents is the best thing
that can happen to a child.
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