Happy parenting....

It is the summer break for the kids and three of my nephews, aged 9, 10,and 12, dropped in to spend a week with us. Both of our own kids (!) were out and that made the age composition of the gathering a bit wonky. One 82, one 73, one 53, one 50 and of course the three arrivals!! We were smug with the confidence, having raised two of our own, that handling these three would be child's play - at least that's what we thought. While a full blown book would be in order, just a couple of instances would suffice to prove that we have miles to go before we can be confident enough to feel so smug:

Scene 1: As I came upstairs to our room, I saw the young mister 9 holding his towel around his waist, standing 'statue' in front of the bath. "What happened? Are you not going in for a bath?" I asked. Without turning his head, he raised his little finger and slowly pushed it through the gap between the wall and the door. "Cockroach" he said softly. My next thirty minutes were spent chasing a rogue cockroach through ten thousand crevasses and hill sides (at least that is how the cockroach behaved)....Mind you, mister 9 had also told me in his soft voice not to kill the roach. So I had to chase, catch and export him across our garden before mister nine consented to pour two mugs of water on himself. When I entered the house after successfully exporting the roach, and panting and perspiring in the burning heat of Chennai, the 50, 73 and 82 had the laugh of their lives !!!

Scene 2: Having somehow managed them at home through the day [courtesy the three musketeers who happily chomped their their way through packets of potato chips, I had watched without much choice of course, Tom & Jerry, Gods Must Be Crazy, Haunting and Conjuring - all in a row!!!], we decided to take them out to a bakery joint. The three were out of the car and into the joint even before my wife and I locked the car and entered. Mister 9 had also decided that all three of them will have only masala potato fingers - just because that was the brightest ad displayed at the entrance. The attendant helpfully told me that the potato fingers would be freshly made on order. So order we did, and waited. At the risk of a commodore's stare from my better half, I asked mister 9 "there are hundreds of items here, should you have ordered the potato fingers that would take time?" The youngster simply told me "that is what we want to eat". Fine, okay, let us wait. A round of pastries, patties and cold coffee later, when the potato fingers finally arrived, the young mister 9 looked up and said "see, it was worth the wait, don't you agree?" When did I say I had a choice to disagree?

Scene 3: It had to happen. Mister 12 took mister 10 with the promise of teaching him how use a cycle. The mercury was helpfully at 42 C and even the crows and cows (all humans too except the mentioned) hid themselves wherever shade was to be found. My wife was rustling up lunch and suddenly there was a shriek. Mister 9 ran out and ran in to announce that mister 10 had managed to fall from the cycle. The skin around one knee was neatly peeled and down on the foot, there were two marble sized nicks. I picked up the wailing mister 10,  put him into my car and rushed him to our doctor who was, fortunately, only few hundred meters away. As the nicks and cuts were dressed, the shrieks could be heard for miles away. I was only thanking the stars that there was no lady admitted for delivery in the clinic. Had one been, she would delivered without even a sigh!!! The wounded and 'dressed' mister 10 came home to a welcome reserved only for war heroes, from mister 9 & 12!! Having done his dressing at home twice thereafter, my wife tells me that I have managed to learn to shriek well myself....

Oh, to say that bringing them up is easy...well, not me,,,I never said....in case you think it is, I can only wish you good luck. But then, there is something I must say: parenting is the most beautiful experience of life. There are no perfect parents. There can, however, be unfortunate parents - those who never realise that loving their children is the key to good parenting. Accepting their children for what they are, loving them, standing by them, supporting them, teaching them to enjoy small moments and small things....well these are the rewards. Elsewhere in my blog, I have quoted a poem by Khalil Gibran. I strongly recommend that we must reflect upon the meaning of that poem.      

I have the power....

Every time He-Man wants to take on an enemy, he rises up his hands and proclaims "I have the power". The rickshawallah, coolie, illeterate agricultural labour and street vendors of India became He-Man on 16 May 2014. They raised their hands in unison and proclaimed that THEY HAVE THE POWER. Stunning, stupefying and blowing to smithereens a government that had held sway over their destinies for ten long years. Good, bad and the ugly - all of them - lock, stock and barrel - who were smug in the belief that the illiterate average Indian was happy listening to the stock song of caste, community and personal mud slinging - were routed beyond belief. The voter has proved that however high and mighty a politician be, voter is king!! This is not just a political victory for a party, it is the most authentic demonstration that PEOPLE are the actual power in a democracy.

There are quite a few note-worthy achievements in the General Elections of 2014:

1. Held over 09 phases, in 900000 polling booths across the country to enable 814 million people who are eligible to vote. There simply is no parallel anywhere else in the world and we are confident that this is one area that China would not like to compete with India.

2. 1647 Parties (national/regional/recognised/registered) directly participating and/or involved in the mammoth effort to reach every section of the populace. The second biggest democracy, USA, has just 02 Parties. We have one for every 700000 population on an average!!

3. Over 8100 candidates were in the fray for 543 seats.

4. The average turn out till now has varied between 56 - 63% from 1952 onwards. Some places like the North East had over 83% turn out for voting. Surprisingly, the 'kurukshetra' of elections UP, showed the lowest turn out at 55%.

5. 100 million new voters this time - all in the 18-20 age group. Young India was actually having a say.

6. Introduced for the first time, NOTA (None of The Above) option in the EVM, upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, grossed 1.1% of the vote share. Can you believe that this is more than what the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Janata Dal United (JDU) polled together!! This is the voice of people against corrupt local politicians. Hope political parties, both victorious and vanquished, take note.

7. The mandate given to Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu, Odisha and West Bengal are also interesting. Strong functioning State Chief Ministers have been preferred by people and the usual 'anti-incumbency' factor is missing. Not that these CMs are without their share of corruption/other scandals but their thumping victory is testimony to the peoples preference for governments that deliver. It appears that people want strong and functioning governments; they are fed up with ineptitude and empty talk on peripheral issues. Even BJP victory becomes easily comprehensible when viewed from this perspective.

On the whole, a historic episode with profound impact on peoples lives. The heroes likely to remain unsung of this story are not actually the politicians who contested/lost or the citizens who have made their choices. It is the Chief Election Commissioner of India and his deputies/assistants and the millions of school teachers, revenue officials, policemen and other support staff who have conducted the biggest exercise of democracy in human history till date without a single glitch, incident or unsavoury interruption. They  not merely need to be complemented on their humongous achievement but merit the gratitude of the entire nation as well from the proponents and advocates of democracy elsewhere in the world. CEC, we salute you!!     

Nigerian Nightmare...

In the years following 2005, there used to be a popular term for emails announcing that someone has won GBP 1000000 and all they have to do is contact either a given number or email to the given address - the Nigerian mail. Those who were investigating cyber crime as well as the victims of such mail used to shudder at the ingenuity with which scores of people got duped into paying hundreds of thousand bucks for the victims avarice. No one knows whether Nigerians were the originators of such fraud but the name stuck.

Nigeria is famous again - this time courtesy Boko Haram. Kidnapping of girl children from school is nothing new. Dozens of dirty organisations have done such things before. But consider this:

1. News reports suggest that these girls are being sold for $12. The world has just been told on World Mothers Day that this is the worth of our mothers, sisters and girl children set by Boko Haram.

2. Thousands of children across Nigeria have been withdrawn from school by their parents. Boko Haram has just ensured that Nigeria's young generation are pushed towards the dark ages of illiteracy and subsequent unemployment and poverty.

3. The world governments, AU, EU and the government of Nigeria are still scratching their head as to what to in the face of such brutal, inhuman and scruple-less act of Boko Haram - as though the world has not seen enough to decide swift and decisive action. Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Chad, Liberia and Cambodia actually are history and we have a penchant for reading history only from our arm chairs.

4. As the world keeps twiddling its fingers, Boko Haram continues to get its arms supplies and financial back up from unknown sources. Dozens of arms manufacturers around the world and illegal financiers are minting their money. Few hundred more girls being added to the thousands of already vandalised-and-sold-into-prostitution women do not make any difference to them. Nor do they make any difference to those countries that facilitate exporting of those arms or are the conduits for the black money.

At the end of it all, we can be rest assured that ten-twenty years hence there would be an international tribunal for Nigeria and leaders of Boko Haram (who may well be on their natural way to their graves) would be sentenced to 150 years in prison. Countries would contribute monies to hold the tribunal and subsequently house the imprisoned. Lawyers on either side would also have earned their due out of the legal process. A jubilant world will observe that the end of international justice has been served well and that now there are more immutable precedences for offences against women during hostile conditions. Everyone will be happy.

In the mean time, the girls abducted by Boko Haram would have begotten their children out of their captivity with Boko Haram. Growing up in a country that fears to send its children to school and finding that their poverty is so oppressing, they may fall prey to taking up arms. They may perpetuate what Boko Haram has as yet left undone.

The Nigerian Nightmare....Hello world...anyone listening? How about doing something to stop the nightmare turning into reality?

PS: Looks like I must start writing scripts for movies. It might help me to get money to buy history books and an arm chair.