Shilpa Roy Kota

Parenting Stories (and more) from the desk of an imperfect parent

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  • Nani House

    Yesterday, on my way down in the society elevator, I met a young boy and a girl. Boy must have been around 10 and the girl around 6. Boy was carrying two large bags full of eatables and the girl was managing a small trolley bag. They had an air of excitement and adventure that comes at the start of a new journey.

    I casually remarked, “Exams are over, eh!”. The boy nodded silently, trying not to engage in conversation with a stranger.

    I continued, “Going to Nani house for the holidays. ” At this comment, the boys curiosity got better of him. He immediately asked, “How do you know?”

    I smiled and said, “I just know.” In my heart I wondered, where else in the whole wide world do we go as soon as our final exams are over! The world is at our finger tips. We can choose to travel to anywhere in the world but the start of the holidays have to be marked with a trip to Nani’s house.

    Blessed are those who have grandparents to visit. Blessed are those who have grandparents living with them. Blessed are those who choose to visit parents before everything else.

    Like the lovely brother and sister, I am also eagerly waiting for the exams to get over. For no other reason but to take my children to their Nani’s house.

  • Papa Kehte Hain but Mummy Doesn’t Care

    Thanks to music practice at school, Yog has been the humming the song “Papa Kehte Hain” for weeks now.
    Yog’s knowledge of Hindi is developing and my knowledge of Music has been and always will be limited. Both of us are aware of each others limitations so we try and provide more details to each other as and when necessary.
    Since Yog clearly loves the song, he wanted me to appreciate it more with him. So he started explaining me the background to the song. He told me it is a college farewell song where the Hero is saying “Papa kehte hain bada naam karega” meaning that the Hero’s father thinks that his son will make a big name for himself one day.
    Yog then continues the song lyrics, “Magar yeh to koi na jaane ki meri manzil hai kahan!” Yog then confidently explains that this line means ,”But the Hero’s mother says that you can become anything you want. Your mother will always love you!”
    I burst out laughing at Yog’s sweetest interpretation of the song and his attempt at making me appreciate the song that probably runs in the blood of each person of our generation!
    So dear Father you can keep whatever expectation you want for your son! For me, as a mother, he will always be my Mumma’s boy!

  • Prayer

    We pray to receive, to give, to change what we see is not right.
    Today, I received the vision to see that nothing was wrong in the first place. I am now in a position to give unconditional love.
    Such is the power of prayer. We receive what we asked for yet not in way we had thought we would.

  • Goodness Wins Each Day

    Diwali as a festival signifies victory of Good over Evil. Right from Navratri through Dussehra and lasting all the way till Diwali, we remind ourselves that righteousness will always win. For me, this year has been nothing short of miraculous because I have witnessed goodness prevail not just on Diwali but every single day. Read on to know more.

    Ever since my daughter, her friend and I started Project Gyan Jyot, my life has been filled with gifts, miracles and gratitude. Project Gyan Jyot is a small initiative to help bridge the learning gap for a few slum children in Pune. My daughter and her friend are high schoolers. Both of them gathered a bunch of more high schoolers and all us together have been aiding the learning journey of the slum children. When we kicked off the Summer camp in March 2023, I was skeptical. Why would high schoolers spend their summer with us in a sweaty, smelly room which boasted a creaky old fan and a failing light bulb as its only infrastructure? But I was wrong. Not only these high energy teens joined the camp at a single days notice, they also spread the word like wild fire on the social media groups. We had a steady stream of volunteers throughout the summer to help the children learn English. They innovated with games, crafts, songs and what not, trying to create the most memorable experience for the children. For me, this was nothing short of a miracle. This changed my complete outlook about the teens of today! It was simply wow! I call this my miracle 1.

    We started with about 10 regular children in the class and now we have 25 regular children (with 70 registered children who keep popping in and out of class). We did not spend a minute or a single rupee in marketing the class and getting more children. They simply love the class so much that they keep going and telling their friends, cousins, and even guests about it. This reinforced my belief that all children naturally want to learn if they are taught in a way that resonates with them. I call this my miracle 2.

    All throughout the months, I have seen children teaching children. Sometimes high schoolers helping middle schoolers and sometimes middle schoolers teaching primary graders. Somedays when the rush is beyond control, children who have understood a concept, willing move on to help their peers understand. They have a choice to move forward on their own learning or do something to while away their time. But all of them have discovered the joy in sharing and they take pride in helping their peers learn and come up. We live in a world where we teach children that it is a tough world out there and they need to be extremely competitive, but I witness a completely different world in our small classroom, each day. I call this my miracle 3.

    When I started the classroom, how I wished we could leverage technology to get the best learning aids for the children. Last month we signed the agreement with Byjus and the senior children have started learning on one of the finest curriculum suited for Indian Boards. I call this my miracle 4.

    Most of the days I used to lug a bundle of story books with me so that children can exchange their old books and borrow the new books that I had carried that day. A few weeks ago, some noble folks donated two large wooden cupboards which I could partly fill with some old books from my own home. As the word spread more and more people came forward to donate preloved books, board games, and toys. Some days, I end up spending my day on the road going from home to home collecting these goodies! I call it my miracle 5.

    There have been many more incredible, unbelievable events that mark this story and many more awesome souls that I have connected with during this journey. Will share more stories as we move along.

    If you have been reading this till now, I know you are inspired by goodness too. I know that no matter what the media likes to tell us there is a lot more good happening in the smallest parts of the world. I know that no matter how bad my day has been when I land up in class in the evening, my faith in goodness, humanity and God is restored.

    Project Gyan Jyot has taught me that there is a lot more purity in this world than that meets the eye. But since this purity is not splashed in front of our eyes, every single day, we tend to believe that Evil is winning. To experience miracles like I have experienced, perhaps each one of us has to make our individual effort to cross the line ourselves and be part of creating Diwali each day for ourselves and many more around us.

    Happy Diwali to you all!

    May you discover the good within yourself and everyone and everything around you.

  • A New Start


    The hard drive of my laptop crashed and I lost years worth of saved data.

    I keep important professional and personal data on the Cloud so all the important data was recovered but still I had this feeling that I had lost so much. I believe, I lost thousands of saved family pictures. I lost hundreds of documents I had downloaded, hoping to read someday. I lost so many random files I had not opened in years. I also lost a few working documents that I had not uploaded on the cloud, yet.

    As the shock of the loss subsided and I picked up the pieces of my life again, I realized that a hard drive crash is pretty similar to a new birth of my digital self. Just like, death makes us loose all our material possessions, my hard drive crash made me lose all my digital baggage. Just like, we still carry forward our mind, intellect and ego to our next birth, I did carry forward all my relevant important data to my upgraded laptop (by downloading it from the cloud). Just like, we get a brand new body to start our journey of life again, I got a brand new SSD in my laptop.

    Oh! What fun it is, to work on a faster, cleaner, better organized laptop! Makes me wonder why we fear a hard drive crash? Makes me wonder, why do we fear death? Both are simply ways of nature to give us a fresh start on our journey. Continuing the thought process, had I upgraded my laptop with an SSD months ago, maybe my HDD would not have crashed under the load. Maybe, if I support my physical body with an energized and focused mind, my body will not break down under the daily stress of life.

    Through the pain and shock and time lost, I got a chance to experience death and birth. I experienced that if we have lived our life fully, learnt what we had to learn, accumulated abundance of good karma, then even when death takes away all that we consider materially ours, it will just be a step forward towards a new, better us.

    A new birth does not guarantee a problem free, happy life. A new birth just means a fresh chance to deal with problems we were not able to tackle well in the last life. Similarly, a new SSD does not guarantee smooth operations for my ever after digital life. I know, there will be many times I will be searching and missing some of the data that I lost. But Hey! If I have learnt my lesson well, I will be better in backing up my data. I will be better at preparing for death and a new life.

    Note: I am student of Vedanta and try to apply what I am learning to simple things I experience in life. I find my learnings profound (for myself). I write on Medium to share my experiences with others who are seeking the meaning of life through Vedanta. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences about Vedanta.

  • Searching for Love

    छींक आई तो मम्मी ने बोला, “अपना ख्याल रखो!”
    मैंने झट से गुस्से में जवाब दिया, “रखती तो हूं! और क्या करूं? जब देखो मुझे समझती रहती हो!!”

    रात को क्लास से आते देर हो गई तो पापा ने फोन करके पूछा, “बेटा कहां पर हो?”
    मैंने मुँह बनाया और बोला, “थोड़ी आज़ादी तो दो ना पापा!”

    हर बार दादाजी का कॉल आता है तो वो यहीं कहते हैं कि कभी-कभी कॉल कर लिया करो।
    उनको समझ में क्यों नहीं आता कि मैं कितनी व्यस्त हूं?

    शादी हुई, सासूमाँ ने फोन कर के पूछा, “आज नाश्ते में क्या बना है?”
    मैंने लंबी सास ले कर सोचा, “अरे! मुझे मेरी रसोई चलाने दो!”

    रात को थक कर सोने गई तो पति ने बोला, “इतना काम क्यों करती हो? थोड़ा आराम कर लिया करो।”
    मैं इरिटेट हो कर बोली, “तुम तो यही चाहते हो कि मैं नौकरी छोड़ दूं और घर पर बैठके तुम्हारी सेवा करूं।”

    रोज़ रात को सोने से पहले, बेटा कहता है कि मुझे कहानी सुनाओ
    पूरा दिन निकल गया उसके लिए काम करते-करते, अब कहानी का समय कहां से निकालूं?

    मुझे ऐसा क्यों लगता है, कि सब रिश्ते हाथ धो कर मेरे पीछे पड़े हैं? सब लोग मुझे जीने क्यों नहीं देते? सब लोगों को मेरी गलतियाँ ही क्यों दिखती हैं?
    मुझे कोई प्यार क्यों नहीं करता?

    Small conversations going in my head since some days – some mine, some overheard from others. Makes me realize why some of us always keep searching for love even when it was and is all around us.

  • AI and ME

    So, yesterday I attended a class on AI. Don’t ask me why I did that to myself? I am not sure whether it was old age crisis, fear of the unknown or simply stupidity that made me sign up for a random course which popped up on my timeline. My husband has a masters in AI from one of the best universities but sometimes we don’t want to talk to each other and this was another attempt for me, trying to prove that I am not reliant on him. To be honest, I have been looking for ways to be more productive but then signing up for the course made me loose 3 precious hours of Sunday morning. So I am not sure where I am headed right now.

    All the courses out there, make the following promises – Improve productivity, Increase your salary, Get promotions , Rule the world. The latest buzz is “AI will not replace your job. Someone using AI will replace your job.” I am still surprised, why I didn’t wonder, how someone using AI will run an NGO, teach children in a slum, free of cost. Or, how would someone using AI manage my home, cook meals for my family and keep my tribe in check. Honestly, those are the real jobs I do. One good thing about attending the course, I realize I have complete job security. 🙂

    So why am I ranting about AI course being useless? Because, honestly this course was. All the course did was talk about using tool X to generate content, tool Y to put the content on PPT, tool Z to generate videos out of the PPT and tool XYZ to push content to your audience. In the entire 3 hours of presentation, they never talked about using your own mind to review the generated content, editing the content to ensure it aligns with your point of view or building your own content using research generated from AI. Do they really think we can get promotions by just copy pasting someone else’s experience off the internet without adding an iota of thought from our side? If anything, Job promotions are based on analytical thought, creative ideas, leadership skills and “Can do attitude”. Can AI generate any one of these skills for us?

    Anything that AI has generated is based on content that some human generated some time ago. If humans stop using their minds and start relying on AI to produce content, the loop will create garbage content multiplied to the nth level. Anyone who wants to sway sentiments of people towards radical ideas, just needs to implant radical content  in the right online forums (using AI). This content will then be shown to the right people (using AI again). These people will pick up this content (again using AI) and present it to their teams/families/clients/whoever they are trying to impress. This whole loop will generate more content on the same topic and influence innocent minds into dangerous directions.

    If anything, the world needs to have training programs on how to use your mind while using AI. How to decipher genuineness of the content AI has generated for you? How to see everything but still know what is right and wrong for you? I am surely disappointed how the world is marketing AI. This stupid marketing will result in the world using AI for stupid reasons. I sure am scared of such a world.

    We don’t need to be scared of AI. We need to be scared of people not using their minds while using AI.

  • Sat Chit Anand

    We are all supposed to be Eternal Bliss, Sat Chit Anand.

    Sorry Correction! We are all Eternal Bliss but we are ignorant of the fact.
    The sad part is that not only have we have forgotten our true self but also that we look down upon those who are living in eternal bliss.
    We ask them, “How can you be joyful when inflation is skyrocketing?”
    “How can you be happy when your children are not topping the class?”
    “How can you be ecstatic when you are not rich?”
    “How can you be happy, when I am not?
    Thoughts from my little understanding of Drig Drishya Viveka.

  • Preparing for After Life

    According to Vedanta, after death, We only carry the subtle body with us leaving behind the gross/physical body. Goes without saying that all the things we associate with the physical body get left behind too, be it house, money, bank balance or even our so called digital presence.
    So what is the subtle body made of?
    It comprises of emotions, memories, intelligence, and ego.
    If we understand this well, what should we spend time accumulating?
    I am thankful I have tons of beautiful memories full of loving, joyful emotions. And to top it I keep getting more opportunities to create more each day!
    Universe is truly conspiring for me!

  • I am Good Enough

    The world is full of over achievers who are doing so much, earning so much, appreciated so much and seemingly loved so much, as well.
    Once in a while, I look at myself and wonder, have I done enough? Should I have written a book 10 years ago? Should I have picked up a high profile job 5 years ago? Should I have nominated myself for Best Wife Award, or something like that (whatever Men call it)?
    Should I have?
    On such days, I simply sit in the sun (oh yes! It’s nice on sunny days in Pune) look at the trees, hear the birds chirping, look at my beautiful family, count my blessings, breathe deeply, meditate and eventually arrive at the conclusion that I am doing enough! 😁
    I don’t need to achieve what someone else has achieved. I don’t need to make someone else’s success define the value I hold of myself in my own life. I don’t need awards, certificates, or even monetary compensation to measure my true worth.
    My definition of success is for me to define, for me to measure against no one else but me myself! So I decide I am the best version of me today. Tomorrow is a new day and I am sure it will challenge my version of 22nd August2023 to do a little better than yesterday.
    Will you (the reader) ever get to know, if I did better than yesterday? Hell no! Why would I give a certificate of appreciation to myself; click a selfie of me giving it to me and then put it on my FB profile! No way!
    If you know me, you already know, I am doing enough and I will keep doing better each day. (ok! Ok! To be fair, on most days!