CONSIDERATION- A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Treat your parent with love but more than that, treat them with consideration especially when they are old and you are an adult. What is consideration- Con Side Ration, which means you ration the con side when giving them any news.

When you were a kid, at the drop of a hat you ran whining and whingeing to them about your troubles. You always laid the dead rat at their doorway and they dealt with it. STOP DOING IT NOW.

They are old and they have enough trouble dealing with a thing called life without having a fractious ‘kid adult’ throwing at them problems regarding job/ spouse/ health ad nauseum.

Resist the urge to trumpet every achievement- they cheered your hideous art projects in school, sat through dull performances and now don’t make them clap with trembling hands.

Just because you are busy, do not be inconsiderate of their time. While the days remain the same length, time has slowed for them because they too have slowed down. Everything takes longer giving them less time to do it in and here’s the irony- they become busier doing less and hence their frustration.

Don’t add to it by taking chunks of their time with your problems. Your parents are not going to be around forever. Give them love without responsibility.

Now, behave like a responsible adult and stop crying on their shoulder- seek out your spouse and teach them the first lesson of marrying you- how to shoulder responsibility!

Nimmou Nilakantan

MOURNING

MOURNING

When your wife of  nearly six decades, passes away, you mourn not just her death, you are also bereft of your life, as you knew it. For 56 years you had your mate by your side and even if she was not physically present every moment of those years, like a vine she was entwined in the very fabric of your being. And, when that vine withered it was the mighty oak which supported it, that fell with a mighty crash.

And no one gets it.

They sympathize with your loss, they empathize with your loneliness but they just do not understand that you are faced with not one loss but two- her life and the life you had, with her.

The older you are the harder it is to uproot and re-invent yourself as a single entity. The pillar has gone and the edifice has nothing to support it.

In actuality, it is the reverse- the building has gone and with it the pillar, with nothing to support begins to crumble.

The bulwark needed the burden.

Community, children, grandchildren, friends are just tentacles that twine themselves around, seeking solace in offers of help, not realizing that what is left is a brittle shell crumbling bit by bit, wanting desperately not for words of comfort, but to join the one who has run their race.

Nobody wants to be left behind either in life or in death....

Nimmou Nilakantan

July 3rd 2013

The Marriage Ring

THE MARRIAGE RING

Why is marriage still looked upon by society as a cure for all evils? Earlier, when someone suffered from epilepsy marriage was touted as the best remedy. As if faulty circuitry in the brain could be re-wired by a legalized romp in the sack! Today, though India is in the league of economic giants, sadly we remain minnows in the face of a vengeful society that persecutes the unmarried. We have marriage forums like Bharath matrimony, Shaadi.com, Jeevan Sathi etc.etc. whose noble purpose is to bring two, starved for love, souls together while making a shitload of money in the process. It is nothing but a platform for the desperate plea of parents who look upon unmarried girls as an unwanted commodity to be dumped on the best bidder. And the boys become ‘bakras’ posting their profiles with the forlorn hope of ensnaring a partner to fulfill their dream of a fairy tale romance.

The ground reality is that both boys and girls are playing their parents in a dangerous game of Seek, Meet and Retreat. And, here is the paradox- you get your parents on the bridal bandwagon and join in the ‘seek the dream partner fest’ with little regard that this is not a mango mela where you settle for the juiciest fruit. These are real people with real feelings which get hurt with every rebuff.

So, while the hapless parents wring their hands in despair and yet doggedly pursue every lead in the matrimonial mayhem, the girls and boys happily press the delete button sending the desperate parents on yet another wild goose chase, while insisting they want to get married.

When are we parents going to remove the jasmine tinted glasses and tune out the clamor for wedding bells? I know- when we parents take a firm stand and tell our ‘kids’ to go forth, seek and find your own! If not, go forth and multiply (in other words f##k off) and face the damn consequences.

We are tired people and just want to flop in our favourite chair and drink a cup of tea in peace. We do not want to be matchmakers or candle stick makers and yet we are forced by a relentless society which sniffs a bachelor/spinster past their ‘sell by date’. The dreaded query ‘Your daughter/son is still not married?’ launches us into yet another frenzied attempt to woo people we know precious little about except what we glean from their carefully doctored (and mainly padded up) profiles of themselves.

After having my fingers burned in this mug’s game of finding a ‘suitable’ bride for my son and getting rejected by girls on the flimsiest of pretexts (usually masking a desperate desire not to enter the state of matrimony) I have a word of advice to other long suffering parents. Love and respect your children’s choices. They are not goods to be auctioned off and you are not fulfilling their destiny by finding them a marriage partner.

And, to the next nosy relative/frenemy/ colleague/ neighbour who solicitously enquires about the marital status of your progeny, look them in the eye and tell them the wedding invite is in the mail- it is time to cash our cheques folks!

Nimmou Nilakantan

542 words

TO AMMA

A year has passed

You have not gone

I hear you in the music

That you listened to at dawn

You have not gone

Because now I clearly see

That love is in actions

Not in words spoken to me

How can you be gone?

When each and everyday I feel

Your warmth and love

In every tasty homemade meal

A year has passed, I do not mourn

That you are no longer on earth

Death can never take away

The life you gave me at birth

I do not cry, I have no cause for tears

Because I know I’ll always be

The daughter you loved, while you remain

My dearest Amma till eternity...

Your daughter,

Nimmou

23^rd December 2012