Here is an interesting observation about our culture. Although this is based on my personal experience, I am sure many individuals must have encountered similar situations somewhere along the line. Anytime, either here or in India, when we visit a relative or a friend who has a young child, one often notices that the host wants to let the guest know and that too with a great sense of pride how smart and unusual his or her toddler “Pappu” or, for that matter, “Pinki” happens to be. In fact, isn’t it true that everyone thinks that his child is far better, smarter and more attractive than any other child in the world? Once a guest or relative settles down and has been offered a drink, the next step for the host mother always is, to loudly invite her little Pappu or Pinki to come and read the A-B-C… to uncle ji. The poor mother wants the guest to know that her child, unlike any other child in the world, already knows almost all the alphabet at this tender age. While the mother is continuously prodding her little one to come forward, poor Pappu might not be in a mood to oblige and thus won’t cooperate. Instead, he runs away saying, “No! No! Mama, I don’t, I don’t want to.” But the mother insists that Pappu must read aloud, for she is very excited to spread the word about her child’s achievement. After all, in her mind, Pappu, her child, happens to be the most intelligent kid in the entire whole world and how could she let this opportunity pass by without letting guest uncle ji know about it? Finally, not finding a way to overcome Pappu’s stubbornness, the mother bribes the child by offering a reward if he were to oblige. “Uncle ji is going to give you a candy if you read the A-B-C… to him,” she announces loudly. Somewhat skeptical about the validity of the offer, little Pappu reluctantly and slowly starts to move toward the guest repeating, “No, no.” Pappu is worried that this might be just another ploy, like the one mom played on him last time, when another uncle ji dropped by the house. The mother then goes back to the kitchen and picks up a candy while loudly announcing, “Here is your candy, beta (son), but you will get it only after you have read the A-B-C… to uncle ji. Please start to read now, loudly.” Pappu then holds the book upside down and, in his babbling voice, starts reading the A-B-C… There is no end to the contentment in mom’s eyes. “Look, veer Ji (brother) how smart our Pappu is,” she says, while hoping that guest will now ask her son’s age. “He can read the entire alphabet, Veer Ji! Isn’t it amazing? Not only does he read, but he can also count up to 100 even. After all how many infants of his age can do that?” And then she asks the child to start counting. Her happiness overflows so much that she starts riding on cloud nine, especially if the child does it. Among Sikh parents another moment of pride happens to be if a little child is also able to read Mool Mantra by mouth. While all this goes on, the poor guest may seem totally oblivious, uninvolved, and uninterested in the entire process, for this is not the first time he has encountered this scenario at an Indian’s household. Besides, what interest, if any, a guest might have whether or not the host’s child is able to read the alphabet or, for that matter, count up to 100. In fact as stated earlier, we all encounter these kinds of situations time and again given that most of us are family-oriented people. We have a strong in-built notion that our love for our children goes way beyond anyone else’s in the world. But, we forget that this might not be necessarily true in every situation and the parents in most of situations always love their children. For a long time, I thought I was the only one confronted with such encounters as I have been blessed with several of these toddlers and infants from a number of my nephews and nieces. But recently, while watching one of the ethnic television channels, I happened to tune in to a sermon being delivered by one of the many Indian sages who now seem to occupy most of these ethnic TV channels day and night. In her discourse, she referred to the prevalence of this phenomenon while detailing similar situations during her visits with several of her friends. In fact this is what instigated me to pen this essay. Discussing the excessive attachment (moh) we have toward our children and our family, she explained how such behavior often blinds us making us truly selfish. We seem to ignore that the world out there is too vast and there are children all over who may be doing just as well—and maybe even better—rather superbly, in all spheres of life than my child or yours. What may be somewhat unsettling about this illusion is that such a thought process makes many of us ignore the need to further enhance our child’s skills. Perhaps there are situations where this might be true and a child in question might well be way smarter, rather exceptionally, than others. But then in those situations, the child’s brightness will naturally become obvious with the passage of time. Repeated and recurrent announcements about the skills of one’s child to each and every guest who shows up at the door might not be the right strategy. The guest or friend, who has come for the other reasons rather than checking upon the child, doesn’t need to be bothered with such actions. These intrusions at times may backfire and create negative feelings leading to an opposite effect than what the poor mother had originally intended. It also should be kept in mind that the guest might have an equal or even more intelligent kid than the host’s child, and he or she could easily talk about his own child’s achievements instead of listening to what the host has to say. After all, the love and attachment we feel towards our little children is ingrained in everyone including all living species. We hope to stay alive through our children even when we are gone from the scene. Yet this should not give us a free and limitless license to impose upon others more than what they could tolerate in a given situation. There simply is no need to pester those who don’t have anything to do with our child. No guest, no matter what his or her relationship is with the host, would ever say anything unkind about the host’s child, yet these kinds of interactions can often annoy uninvolved people and therefore, should be avoided at all costs.
*Taken from the author’s latest book, “Western Mirror, Eastern Reflections”
