Saturday, September 20, 2014

Kicking a Habit


          ‘When do we get married? How long do I wait?’
No, it wasn’t a girl asking a boy, but the other way round. No response.
‘Think of our friends. They are all married’. So what, seemed to be her expression.
‘Ravi and Sitara have a daughter. She’s already two. I’ll still keep asking you about our marriage and Guddi, meanwhile, would have found her man! Will we ever get married? I’d better ask an astrologer than you..’

Sunday, September 7, 2014

The day I saw Death


I am tired of it all. I take care of everyone and everything at home, and yet, no one gives me a damn. I’m just taken for granted.
Let me tell you what happened this morning. I woke up fresh and fine, and made myself and my hubby some hot coffee, and sat in the balcony of our first floor flat, enjoying the cool breeze. My husband, who had just finished his workout, started, ‘I just don’t like the way the kids are idling. They don’t even wake up early!’ Being an early riser, I know of the benefits of being a lark, but my twins, aged ten, were too young to understand that. I am a firm believer in discipline, not in form, but in content. ‘Look at Kaushik, he’s one year junior to our useless fellows, but gets up early, takes the tennis class, goes to school, learns the piano, and can dance like MJ. Look at our fellows. Except for studies, they’re good for nothing’. ‘Oh, please stop that, won’t you? It seems you are cursing your children!’ said I, closing my ears from the foulness of the talk. Is this the way a father thinks about his children? Could he not think constructively? ‘You don’t understand my position. All my peers have achievers as their children. And look at me, I have twins, with half the achievement of any single child’. ‘There you are… You have twins, so you are doubly blessed. Achievements are not an end in itself. Recollect your district first rank in your X standard exam. Now, after being the father of two, does it give you the same pride and achievement as you did then?’