Shilpa Roy Kota

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

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  • Law has to be Blind but Humans need not Be

    Photo Courtesy: Huffington Post

    As the whole country seethes with anger on the release of the juvenile, I feel anger and frustration rising too. I am a woman myself and a mother of an innocent girl. But I am sure, it is not just women like me who are seething. I am sure men of all ages and caste are furious too. We all know that if there was ever a man who deserved capital punishment, it would definitely be this Juvenile.

    Alas, I was once a law student myself and I understand why Lady Justice has a cloth tied on her eyes. A law is a law and has to be upheld unless the basic facts of the case are changed like that done successfully by Salman Khan. I give complete credit to Salman Khan for teaching us an important lesson. “We cannot officially take the judiciary for a ride. But we can officially change the facts associated with the case, one by one.  Once all the facts are changed, the law will deliver the justice you want it to deliver. ”

    Going by this learning, if we really had to ensure that the Juvenile was sentenced to a more serious punishment, we should have officially changed his date of birth. With just a little collaboration, we could have made anywhere near 25 years old. Sigh! But we did not do this in time.

    Anyhow, I have still not lost hope of having this Juvenile being awarded the punishment he deserves. The good thing about this decision is that Judiciary has freed this animal from it’s own protection and delivered him to us, the people. He is ours from tomorrow. So what if he has a tailor shop to eat food? It is we the public who have to still enter that tailor shop and give him business. The only thing we need to know is the name of this Juvenile and his Huliya (body description). Let us plaster this face and name all over the country to ensure that not a single soul shows him mercy. We do not have to castrate him or even put a finger on him. If we boycott him together from our society, he will die the slowest, most distressing death that a man has known.

    Justice would truly be denied, when we, as a society, fail to do so. Justice will be denied, if we let this Juvenile get back to a hope of a normal life. Justice will be denied, when we sulk inside our homes and let this animal run wild, violating any one of our daughters. The Law can free this animal but the Law cannot force the public to accept this animal as one of us.

    My humble request to anyone reading this blog. Please share the name and photograph of this beast. Let us jointly make him more popular than he is right now.

    Photo Courtesy: Huffington Post

  • My Husband Lost his Wife to an Alien

    Aliens and Us

    A good friend sent a message late yesterday night with a simple line, “We are pregnant!” followed by, “I need to speak to you!” My heart swelled with pride, love, joy, gratefulness and every other positive emotion that is humanly possible. From this first sentence on, I knew he got the whole thing about pregnancy right. He didn’t say, “She is Pregnant!”. He said, “We are Pregnant!”.

    While on the face of it, some folks might think that men don’t really have to do much with pregnancy but the fact is that they actually contribute equally to the whole thing, literally and figuratively speaking. Just as an example, most lucky men have run out of handkerchiefs, patience, money and the biggest of all – time with their wives, by the time pregnancy draws to a close. This is when, they realize that all their hard work to create and get the unknown creature into the world, actually culminated in the unknown creature (hereinafter referred to as the “Alien”) possessing the mind, body and soul of their, one and only, wife. The sexy partner that they once knew could now only serve the purpose of a fat, milking cow who was either feeding, sleeping or crying 24 *7 * 52.

    Jokes apart, being a two-time mother, I know what it takes to go through the pregnancy and the first six months of child care. No matter how beautiful it feels, it is physically and emotionally draining. Under the circumstances, women tend to get a lot of sympathy and support but no one really turns around to look at the Father. I have never really been a first time Father myself, but I can imagine how it must feel like. You are as alien to this new born creature as it is to you. You have not had a decent night sleep in months, but you are still expected to work hard during the day  and earn double the salary, as you now have an extra mouth to feed. You can never differentiate between the zillion of reasons why this Alien keeps relentlessly crying. But your wife can decipher the exact reason just by listening to the sound of one cry, even when she herself is in the shower. Yeah! there is a code language somewhere in between there, which only the Alien and your wife can understand. In before alien times, you would have hugged and confided in your wife about how helpless you feel. But now she doesn’t have a second to hear you, leave alone see you cry. Congratulations!! You won a baby (oops Alien I mean) but you just lost your wife in the process!

    This blog is, therefore, dedicated to all Dads who once upon a time, had a wife. I know being a Dad is as difficult as being a Mom. Being a Mom, you are responsible for the welfare of the children. But being a Dad, you are responsible for the welfare of the Aliens as well as their Mom. You have to watch out for the entire clan and keep it safe. Being a Dad, you are an equal part of the miracle and you should keep it that way. So yes, “Congratulations once again to both of you on being pregnant!!”

    One solid advice that I can give you at this stage is – Like all other Dads, out there, if you cannot defeat the Alien, join the Alien and you wife on the journey to the Aliens planet. On this planet, things are pretty simple, yet miraculous. The biggest rewards for hours of hard work are simply given in the form of a “Burp”.  Smelling, feeling and dissecting Poo Poo is considered part of a days job. When the Alien goes to sleep, you can actually feel the time stop still. And if you haven’t really found the purpose of your life, as yet, chances are you will discover that as well on this planet.

    P.S – It has been two and half years since our latest Alien inhabited our world. Honestly speaking my husband is still fighting a losing battle trying to find any remnants of his once wife clothed under layers of motherhood.

  • Walking With You

    HCL0023

    Each night I walk alone under the star lit sky

    The black road beckons and the breeze whizzes by

    My heart is full of music of years gone by

    And dreams of future waiting for you and I

     

    Then, one day, you decide to join me for the stroll

    I share my music and you hug me close

    We stumble upon feet and are close to a fall

    We poke, we push and we laugh aloud

     

    Oh! Why do you need to walk with me?

    Oh! Why do you need to slow me down?

    Oh! Why do you make me stumble and fall?

    Oh! Why do I still love walking with you?

  • The World is a Place to Find Yourself

    The Journey

    I was born with a disease which can prove to be a big deterrent in ones journey towards exploring the world. Thanks to this disease, I used to dread stepping out of home, into cars/buses or planes. If there was no choice and I had to travel, I had to plan meals and backup options, days in advance. During the dreaded journey itself, I used to try and sleep for as long as I could. God forbid, if I was awake even for a while, the attack was just seconds away. Simple as it may sound but those who suffer from this disease can easily relate to how miserable it can make one feel. Fortunately for me, today, I am no longer ashamed or sorry to say that I suffer from one of the world’s most common disorders, “Motion Sickness”.

    Thanks to this disorder, for years, I have preferred to live my life in the small confines of my city. I have made myself believe that waking up at odd hours and staying away from my children would have never excited me. I have concluded that I have a beautiful life and it wasn’t possible to make it more beautiful. Nonetheless, in spite of my hatred for travel, I have been forced to endure it, sometimes for work and sometimes on the insistence of my husband, who for some surprising reason would still prefer my company than any of the most handsomest of males we have in our team.

    I started my latest travel for work, 2 days ago. As always, I was complaining and trying to find a way out of this travel. But alas there was nothing more important, than the travel itself, that came up and I forced to fly. This time, the one thing that made me look forward to travelling was the fact that in addition to work, I could spend some cozy hours snuggling in the blankets at my Moms house. In spite of the winter chill, Delhi was warm with the hugs and love of friends and family. Good food, shopping and working made the days just fly by. As I sat down in the taxi back towards the airport, I realized travelling was not that bad. It had actually been fun.

    Chugging a heavy bag full of goodies from my mom, I thought I had never felt lighter in life. I was slowly starting to enjoy travelling. Each new place with its new weather, food, people and discussions offered me a tweeny weeny new insight about myself. At the airport, I managed to peek into all the shops and smile at all the sales people offering goods I didn’t need but I still wanted to touch and feel. I checked out the clothes of men and women, trying to guess where they came from – Hyderabad, Mumbai, Calcutta or Raipur? As the transfer bus halted to a stop just near our plane, I mused at how everyone jumped towards the bus exit. What was really the rush to get out from one cramped transport into another? I guess that just rushing from one moment to another moment gave humans an innate sense of purpose. The fact that we are busy forces us to believe that we must have something really important to do with our life. So what, if we don’t know what that purpose is, right now.

    I am happy that I am one of the last few to board the plane. I am in no rush. I am pretty sure that the crew will not leave a single passenger on the tarmac. Finally I manage to sit down comfortably in my airplane seat (luxuries of having short legs). To my delight, I am surprised to note that I even have live entertainment available in the domestic flight. There are two young girls just on the seat behind me and I am forced to listen to their conversations. I cannot help but smile throughout the journey. Through their vivid narration of their lives, I get to live the experience of one of theirs first kiss and her breakup, one month, thereafter. My head reels a little as she quickly moves from one sweet boy to another handsome boy in quick succession. When her friend asks her what would be the foremost quality that she would want in her husband, her prompt candid response was “Rich”. The airplane ride is bumpy and the pilot has put the seat belt sign on. I am not worried about landing safely. I know the pilot will have to worry about that. The only worry that I have on my mind  today is trying hard enough, so as not to turn back and look into the eyes of this little girl.

    Travelling, in a way, simplifies life. While we might be worried about catching the flight and reaching the meeting place on time; thanks to travelling we manage to distance ourselves from the larger worries that we live in our homes day in day out.

    The more I see outside, the bigger the window in me becomes

    The farther away from home I go, the closer I feel to it

    The more love I carry, the lighter my heart feels

    Life after all is a journey wherever we might be

  • Dear School, Please note that I am the Primary Caregiver for my Children

    My School

    Dear School,

    I am the Mother. In case you are not aware, I am the one behind waking up the children in the morning, getting them dressed, checking on their school work, packing lunch boxes and dropping them to school. I am the one, attending Parent Teacher Meetings, participating in school events and networking with like-minded parents in the school. And in case you didn’t know, I am the one who searched through multiple forums, spoke to endless parents and finally shortlisted you, as the school for my children.

    In return, don’t you think, it is my right to be considered as the Primary Caregiver for my children? But No, something in your old traditional system stops you from bestowing that title to me. You would rather stick to history and tradition and chose the Primary Caregiver as the “Father”. Don’t get me wrong! I am still happily married, and I love my children’s father. He is a great Dad!!

    But how do I explain the situation to you!?! You see, my husband and I run a business together and he needs to travel most days of the month because I choose to stay in town, with the kids. However, in your records he is listed as the Primary Caregiver and therefore, the person to contact for anything related to our children. You send him text messages, emails and invitations which bounce off his phone most of the times because he is traveling. The ones that do reach him, do reach us, just a few days late. I have waited on bus stops not knowing if it is a holiday and missed school buses, not knowing that the bus timing had changed. For my younger kid, I have been waiting patiently to see if he has even qualified for the school interview. I admit I have sometimes cheated and marked my phone number under my husbands name. I still wonder how, but your smart IT system figured this anomaly and punished me by marking me as a mother of someone else’s child.

    Sigh! Don’t you think this is unfair?  I think I deserve to receive information first hand and have the ability to act on the information on time. It is my humble request to you to please consider the Mother as the Primary Caregiver. It is not that the Father doesn’t need to know. Please be assured that we do keep the Father informed on each score, award, or remark from the school.

    I sincerely hope that this simple request is not bloated into a Womans Rights Issue debate. This is a simple reality not only in India but largely all countries in the world. Most women take pride and pleasure in being the Primary Caregiver and love the fact that our husbands earn enough to support us in playing the role. You can speak to my husband, if you need any confirmation or validation on this distribution of responsibility. I wish I could offer you to directly speak to him on the same, but sadly you will need to go through me to get an appointment on his calendar. He is travelling right now and will pass all unregistered numbers to me to follow up on.

    Yours truly,

    Frustrated Mother

  • Dreams

    mermaid

    When we dream with our eyes closed, our mind knows no boundaries. We can walk on water, live on the clouds or win Ms. Galaxy beauty pageant. In our dreams, the entire universe, and beyond, is just waiting to be conquered by us.

    However, when we dream with our eyes open, our dreams are constrained by the extent to which our vision can see and our heart can believe. Therefore, I believe, we should always close our eyes and shut the world out to dream the dream that we actually want to live.

     

  • Happy Memories

    If you had to choose one person in this world to laugh at; choose yourself

  • Lesson God Lakshmi would want Us to Learn

    Happy Diwali

    When you are at a stage in life when money ceases to be a problem, you realise that it was never the problem in the first place.

    In essence, one does have to earn a lot of money, if only, to learn to stop blaming Money for the problems.

    Dear Lakshmi ji, I respect you even more now. Not so much for what you can provide to us, but for the amount of patience you would have to deal with fools like us.

    A very Happy Diwali to all my friends and family!!!

  • Doc says, “I have another two years to live!”

    Ambulance

    I had been suspecting something wrong with my mind since a long time. I just didn’t know it was more physical than I had actually thought. The doctor confirmed my suspicion. I had a tumor in my brain and had probably two more years to go. I laughed and told Pavan, “See, I always told you I had a good reason to be out of my mind most of the times!” I felt no fear. I had no regrets. I had led a fulfilling life. What more could I have possibly wished for?

    As we drove back home in silence, my mind started chalking out a plan for the coming two years. Considering these were going to be the last two years of my life, I should make sure I close all open chapters and live all incomplete dreams. My first thought was to spend more time with Pavan. I wanted to be with him every minute of every day for the rest of my life. But considering his travel, the only way to make this happen would be to travel with him. But then what would happen to the kids?? No problem, they will travel with us too!! Two years, no school, no projects, no exams – just complete exploration of the world with their parents!! This sounded super fun!

    Done! This was a good decision. During our travel these two years, I would share everything with my children; everything that I wanted them to remember in life. Maybe I could even write blogs for them to read in times they missed me or wanted to ask me something.  I would write about everything, that I think they would need their mother for, as they grew up.

    As the trees whizzed past on the road, my mind started plotting the questions Toyna would ask me as she stepped into her teens –

    Toyna: Mama, should  I get a Tattoo?

    My Response: Yeah, of course, if you are sure about it. Follow your heart my dear. Let it guide you.

    Toyna: Mama, I really like this guy! Do you think I should go out with him?

    Mama (thinking I hate this guy! He doesn’t even comb his hair): Toyna, think about it! There is no rush to move  forward quickly. If he likes you too, he will be willing to wait. Take your time, and be sure of your decision. I will always support you in whatever decision you take.

    Toyna: Mama, my best friend cheated on me! I hate her.

    Mama: Tell me more dear! I have all the time to listen.

    Toyna: Mama, I am not sure whether to join Dad in business or go for higher education.

    Mama: Both sound super exciting! I am so proud that you are thinking of your future. Do what you feel is best for you. Mama will always be there to support your decision.

    The evening was wearing off. The sun was almost hidden. I was still deep in thought. I preempted many more questions in my mind and the answer was always the same, “Toyna, follow your heart! It will guide you. Mama will always be there to support you.” This conversation in my mind told me that the only thing that I wanted Toyna to remember in her growing years was to learn to follow her heart. I knew she would succeed sometimes and she would fail at other. But as long as she followed her heart, she would find the courage to overcome the failures on her own.

    I was forced back into reality with a sharp jerk of the car. Pavan was honking loudly. He was trying to control the car, but something had gone terribly wrong. We were crashing into the side of the big red truck. There was something written on the side of the truck, “D…E….”. I couldn’t finish reading it. The final thought in my mind was, “Oh!! I don’t have two more years with my children!”  Then, there was darkness.

    I woke up to Pavan pulling at my sleeve lightly. We had reached the meeting place. I woke up to a trance. Oh! This was all a dream. I was fine. I had my entire life ahead of me – not two minutes, not two years, the entire life.

    As reality sank in, I had tears in my eyes. In my dream, I was never scared. But now, in reality I was scared to leave my children behind. I knew that my children needed much more than blogs to help them deal with life. The way I had been bringing up my children till now, I was under the implicit assumption that I was going to be around, for them, for the next twenty years. But who knows what was going to happen to me, or for that matter to them, in the next two years. Who knows whether, in reality, I would even deserve a warning that time was running out?

    Given this, wouldn’t it make sense to spend every golden moment with them and Pavan, right now? Wouldn’t it make sense to let them follow their heart, right now? Wouldn’t it make sense to live my own dreams, right now?

  • Should Women keep Karvachauth?

    Negotiations

    If this was the title of a Group Discussion given for a job recruitment or a college interview, I would have walked out of that interview there and then. Because, for me, this question is not worth a discussion at all. It is not about whether it is right for women to keep this fast or whether it is wrong. It is about the futility of such discussions. What do we hope to gain out of such discussions? It is not about women empowerment, because as far as I know modern men don’t force women to keep this fast. If there is any form of duress at all, it is from the mother-in-law or the mother in the house. So, in essence, by empowering one woman to break the ritual of the fast, you would be depowering another one at the same time.

    In fact, most women, I know, who practice this fast,  do so because they like to do it. It is their form of expressing their love for their husbands. While I don’t believe in expressing love using such means, I, by no means, disagree with the millions of women who do it. They find pride and pleasure in it and that is absolutely fair. In the land of customs and rituals, this is another beautiful ritual. Whether there is any science or meaning behind it, who cares?

    If one has to actually take time and effort to debate and create awareness about topics on women equality and empowerment, talk about child marriages or girl foeticide or objectification of girls in our day to day lives. If you care about life in general talk about why RSS is propagating beef ban, why farmers are dying, why genetic disorders are on the rise? I am sure there is much more to be gained discussing topics that will help us in improving someone’s quality of life even if it is by 0.01%.

    As for Karvachauth, I think we should just let it be. As long as women keep this fast out of their own free will and don’t make their husbands feel guilty all day (or all life) long, it is a beautiful festival that need not be questioned. We all know that a fast will not save thy husband and a thread will not create thy brother, but we still choose to follow these traditions. These customs don’t make a girl weaker or a boy stronger. These just make our family closer.