A journey through life.

A journey through life

                                                                                                     If    you  are a parent   you must have  noticed and experienced   the behaviour pattern  of  your children  at every stage of their  growing up. The evolution from a toddler to  a teenager  to old age  is wrought with  adventures  and misadventures. At every stage of a man’s life there are  significant  as well as insignificant  happenings some of which  are carried over from child hood,  when we are growing,  till we reach a stage when we have  one leg in the grave.   This growing  old is  an inevitable  change.  The cycle of life goes on rotating  irrespective of the fact whether  you like it or not.

  At different stages of life  we   react to  the changes  as is warranted by nature.  Nobody teaches us  what to do or how to do .  The transition  is natural. For example when I was small every body called me ‘ baby’,after a few years I became a ‘didi’.  As the years  passed  by  I acquired  the status of a  ‘bhabi’, ‘mausi’  or ‘aunty’.The   wheel  of life keeps moving. Suddenly  I am transformed  to the status of a ‘madam’.This   continued for a  fairly  long time when  I become ‘mataji’ and  now ‘dadi’.No one can change the direction of this wheel of life.It moves  at its own  pace.

   At all stages of life we  act and react differently. No one gives you any sermons  of acting according to the age you attain.  A small child , hardly a few months old, knows that by crying  he will get milk.  Hence  he  adopts this method. As the child  grows  older he  devices his  own ways and means to achieve whatever he wants. A common and most effective  method which the children adopt at this  stage of life is  to  add  their  teacher's  name  to  the request. The children are very smart. They very well understand the pulse of their  parents. Sometimes they take the advantage of their parents’ ignorance. Once a boy  demanded money from  his  illiterate father for purchasing a ‘time table ‘ book.  At a later date the poor father,  on his visit to the school, complained that  he was  spending  a lot of money  on the son’s education. He specifically mentioned expenditure  on time table book, which was amusing  to the teachers.

 When the children enter their teens their  demands and their requirements too undergo a sea change. They are at a stage of life when they are confused. The child is  at the cross roads.He seems to be a misfit. Among adults  he is considered to be a child  and  in the company of children he is  termed  a bully. This is a testing time for the parents too.The famous story of Rabindra Nath Tagore has very vividly  described the mental state of an adolescent boy and the inability of a widowed mother  to handle this child! This the stage of life when the parent can  make a child a friend for life or  create a distance  between  him  and  the child  for ever.I quote a few sentences from the story which depict the  transition from childhood to  adolescence."It is impossible to shower  affection on him as on a little boy; and he is always getting in the way.If he talks with a childish lisp he is called a baby, and if he answers in a grown-up way  he is called impertinent.In fact any talk from him is resented. Then he is at the unattractive growing  age.” The parents should be considerate and have a  friendly and  positive approach towards the child at this stage. The child must feel that  he is ‘wanted’. Once this barrier  is crossed the real personality of the child comes  to the fore.  The children then reach an age when they can take  their own decisions.  They attain  maturity and are capable  of  facing the  atrocities and  challenges of  the  society. They are thus  mature enough to bring up a family.

There is a story going round  which narrates the various stages of life in a  humorous but   brutal way. This is how  the story goes.  Inside the four walls of an office  lunch hour  discussions  are a regular feature.   They often discuss  how they managed to get the job  they were holding. Within a  lapse of  four to five  years the  topic for discussion is  about interviews , which their children  have to face in various schools .  With the passage of time  the conversations are turned towards   their own promotions . Who got the promotion,  who was overlooked and so on.  As they grow older they  seek information about  the marriage of  their children and where did they settle down.  Slowly but surely  the  topic  changes  to their own retirement,  enquiring who  has settled down and where. Now comes the age of sufferings and our  friends whenever they meet  discuss  their mutual  afflictions and ailments.  The next time they meet  they  discuss who  among their  friends or colleagues  have  slept in  eternal sleep. Thus goes on  life!!  Human nature being the same, generation after generation  the same story of life is repeated. The venue and theme of the story remains  the same!  Only the characters change!!