Rashmi's Space

“Dear girls, get a degree, start earning, buy a house and a car, give back to your parents and then get married. Don’t put your 100% on a man.” Saw this on social media today. It had more than a few thousand likes and hundreds of comments. Then there was another post doing the rounds on social media – about how and why women are not thrilled about the idea of wearing bindis, sindhoor, bangles, toe-rings and other similar signs proclaiming their marital status to the world. And then there is also this fact that the culture of arranged marriage (with the age of the groom never being much of a concern; but the age of the bride preferred to be in the early twenties); is seeing a significant change. The average marriage age, for the bride and the groom today has gone up considerably; especially that of the bride; which brings me back to the whole Dear girls post mentioned above. These posts stem, no doubt, from the idea of women empowerment; because frankly, in our countr...

If May is the month for mothers, then June is the month for fathers! ‘Father’s Day’ is celebrated on the third Sunday of June to recognise the immense contribution made by fathers to our lives! And so, from the mushy, tearful, heartfelt wishes of Mother’s day last month, we now move on to more wishes...only not so mushy and not so tearful, maybe, but every bit as much heartfelt.  Of course, just like our mothers in India, our fathers too do not think much of this tradition. In fact, many aren’t even aware that there is a special day to celebrate fatherhood; nor are they aware as to when this special day is! They fail to see why there should be one particular day in one particular month when they should be 'recognised' as such. After all, haven’t they been fathers all their lives? So what is so special about this third Sunday in June?

"Behind every great kid is a mom who is pretty sure she is getting it all wrong", they say. True, parenting is a game of 'wait and watch.' There is no right or wrong here; or nothing that is a sure fire success mantra. Everyone has a different take on on how they wish to raise their young ones. And it is the choices that parents make that impact their children majorly.