Rashmi's Space

Every house has a routine. Every family has a routine. The husband does a few things, the wife does a few; and the daily grind goes on, like clockwork. So long as everyone sticks to their jobs, and does them perfectly, things go right. Kids reach school on time, adults get to work on time, and all is right with the world. Of course, as simple as it sounds, it also sometimes gets monotonous with everyone just doing ‘the same old.’ And every once in a while, the thought does occur – what if, say, one day the husband did the cooking and the wife drove the kids to school? Wouldn’t it be great to just drive, with songs on, drop the kids, and on the way back, listen to one’s favourite songs? Ah, what a blissful hour that would be! What’s more, there would be hot breakfast ready, thanks to the husband who would have been busy in the kitchen while the wife was out driving and listening to songs – I mean, dropping the kids to school… And then, some days, the smooth clockwork ...

“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...

Baffled by the title? Let me explain. I was recently watching the 1980’s classic Bollywood movie  Khoobsurat  and there was this scene where the female protagonist breaks into an impromptu song and urges us to think  what if?  – What if birds swam in the ocean and the fish flew; what if coffee was available every time we opened a tap and candy and toffees grew on trees; what if the Sun was blue and the Moon was red; what if we slept on a table and ate on a bed…what if, what if, what if…. And that got me thinking! (Now you see the problem with having a vivid imagination?) Well, it got me thinking,  what if things weren’t the way they always are in the real world? But, I wasn’t indulging in as ingenuous thoughts of the lyricist as mentioned in the song ( watch here ); but something else entirely – You see, I had just read the morning papers and checked my FB feed; and was raring to have a go at the things that were really annoying; b...

Each of us is a product of our upbringing and circumstances. Invariably, therefore, we all have our set of likes, opinions and preferences. Some of these have been passed on to us through the elder generation while others are a product of our thoughts and perceptions. It is this mixed baggage that we carry as a person that stays with us when we become parents. This baggage, however, has serious potential to influence our children in a big way.   I recently read an article that says "do not pass on your hatred to your children." It details how parents invariably tend to instill in their children, the dislike they have towards certain things or people. The author's point being - "Just because you don't like something, do not make your children dislike it or just never expose them to it at all!"