Give them wings...

The other day, a friend of S’s drops by at home with his wife. They have been out looking at houses because they liked the complex we lived in. The man waxed eloquent about the beauty of the property while the wife said it looked too quiet. She liked being in the middle of noise and hubbub. S was away travelling so I listened politely to their dissensions on the subject of the house. Over tea I asked them why they needed a house in Bangalore when they lived in Dubai. Moreover, they already owned a flat in a posh area of Bangalore so why the urgency?

Then the floodgates opened and they started talking about their only son who was about 19 or 20. He was smart and did well in academics. He got placed in a college in Canada but his mother didn’t want him to leave to a faraway land. Dubai boasts of no higher education prospects so he would have to leave his mother anyway but she wanted some closer option. He got through to REC Calicut which is arguably one of the best engineering institutions in the country. I was suitably impressed. The youngster seemed well set on his way to a good future.

Now the complaints started. REC was not colourful. Nothing happened there. The students were there to study. Where was the fun in college life? His mother chimed in with complaints about the furniture being boring and seemed appalled that he had to share a room with others. I began to understand the nature of their issues. At first I tried to speak with a measure of patience. I told them I had studied in REC Calicut and found it a great experience. I had been in hostels for 8 years. It taught me independence. As for the furniture, that was not really a problem for me – I had better things to do than check the interior décor. We tried making the best of what we had as students. We would put up lanterns or flowers or posters and brighten up our rooms. The convent where I stayed for five years did not have fans in the rooms. Bear in mind that I am talking of a tropical state like Kerala – so while it wasn’t always easy, it was never that hard either.

The benefit of living in a hostel is that you gain the ability to adjust. You try not to read into people by external appearance alone. You hear different viewpoints from those you have been exposed to in your sheltered existence. You learn how to make do with the limited money (at least in most of our cases) that you are allowed a month. You learn the joy of making friends. You read endlessly and find people who share your interests so you stay up all night debating or listening to music or having mad midnight snack parties. 

As the couple continued to talk I realized that they weren’t asking for an opinion. They had already decided to move their son out of the prestigious REC to a private college in Bangalore so he could live it up. They simply wanted to appear to be debating the issue. They were looking for a house to use as a weekend home. The youngster felt that he was no longer a winner the way he was in Dubai. In REC he was not the best, there were too many ahead of him in the game and he wasn’t getting noticed. He wanted to win – he wasn’t used to losing and therefore his parents were running helter-skelter to ensure that his every wish was granted.

I smiled to myself. If you have problems run to mommy. If you cannot work hard enough to be a winner, find a place filled with the mediocre so that you will look like a winner. Fun should be your top priority and if you cannot get a job, well then what’s daddy’s money for anyway? An intelligent young man chooses the easy way out. His parents enable behaviour that is designed to make him less than he needs to be. Did they plan to be immortal? What would he do when he faced one of the many setbacks that is part of life?

It is rather sad that so many youngsters are taught to take the easy route. Parents cast a wide and heavy safety net so that their kids never learn to be independent. I look around at my boys in the autism centre. They overcome unbelievable difficulties just to sit and work. They may never have a chance at an independent life. Their parents will never rest easy. And then I look at all those privileged young men and women who have but to say the word and their doting parents scramble to give it to them on a silver plate. Why are we creating an entire generation that does not know the value of hard work? Why are we teaching our children to be passive? I think it’s time parents take a good look at themselves and see how their all-encompassing cosseting love is keeping their children from growing to their full potential. Else we will be stuck with a generation of whiners.

For the love of money...

I haven’t written in a while. It’s not because I don’t have anything to write about. Rather, I appeared to have too many things on my mind for me to write about any one idea coherently.So today I write about money and the lessons learnt on account of having it and not having it. Life is not only about lessons learnt, it is mostly about how you apply those lessons. I was thinking of the years long ago when my husband was heading a company at the age of 32. We both had attitude. We knew there was money. There was respect. We never had to think twice outside our own bubble of comfort. We never partied or splurged in the conventional sense because our son had a tough time with noise and crowds when he was little. But we also did not save money because we were rather too cocky for our own good.

Fast forward to a few years ahead with most of our savings invested in our own venture. We learnt the value of a rupee in a very real sense. We didn’t shop unnecessarily. We didn’t change our car because it was 3 years old. We didn’t change the furniture that the kids had gleefully left their imprint on. We took the bus to work. We learnt to reuse. We also learnt to manage our finances in a more intelligent form. Of course we were still under the delusion that a few years of this struggle would see our path would become thorn-free again.

Move the timeline again to the recent past and cast the spotlight on what was arguably one of the toughest years I have ever encountered. It tested me mentally and physically in ways I cannot describe. It changed me irrevocably in a way my normal little mistakes in trusting people hadn’t. The lessons I have learnt now have a lot to do with understanding the role of money in life. People give too much importance to money and not in the right manner. I know better than most people around me the value of monetary security but I don’t need money in the way these very same people need it. I don’t need it to prove a point. After this past year, I can now feel gratitude for having the strength to tide over difficult phases. I am not praying for an easy life. I only pray for the courage to face anything head on and to never say no to a challenge. Life can take whatever turns it wants – I have the lessons I need to survive.

Money is terribly important I agree but when it turns out that it is a means of discrimination instead of upliftment; I wonder where the rapacious greed rampant in the world around us will take us eventually. Use money wisely but don’t let it rule you so that it defines who you are. Let your humanity define you. Let people matter more than what they can pay you. Let the change you bring about be the legacy that speaks for you.