A Lesson From Homework

 A Lesson From Homework

      

       It is such a wonderful feeling watching proudly as a father, the two lovely daughters growing up. Their every prank is a memory to cherish. Our eldest daughter Nidhi was born in Diwali on Dhanteras, considered an auspicious day for monetary gain. People usually buy gold on the day as a good omen for prosperity through year. I don’t remember what I gained monetarily after that but certainly she filled our life with immeasurable joy transcending monetary considerations. She remained our focus, a single point attention and of course our concern, fear. When Sanhita was born one of my relatives spontaneously said it should have been a baby boy but we were very much happy and extremely content with a girl with sharp features and beautiful oceanic shades in eyes. We immediately felt humble and fortunate, thanking Almighty for blessing us with the girl not just one but two.

        It is now a great fun with Sanhita graduating to a naughtier level as compared to Nidhi. She always takes Nidhi for a ride, wants her to share everything but when it’s her turn she sits on the decision often to the anger of Nidhi. I so enjoy all this that I just don’t want to interfere, expect Nidhi to solve the conflict of interest as even a small problem is a big issue for both. Being elder comes with some unwanted sacrifices, a reason for the sound and fury emanating from Nidhi. Sanhita has a knack of putting her desires, wishes in smarter manner, and we, especially I succumbing happily. What we denied to Nidhi, Sanhita managed easily from me, like my pen. She just comes, radiating sugar coated charmed innocence and requests very politely, if I would allow her to use it for a while, difficult to say no to such requests, she walks away more often with everything of her wish, leaving Nidhi fuming, giving my better half an opportunity to inform me about how easily she has blackmailed me emotionally, and alerting me about what may possibly lie ahead.

     With all the fun in growing up comes the weight of school bag on shoulder not that ready to take the burden. Early morning hurry, time usually moving faster than expected, the bus, autoriksha coming a bit earlier and girls searching for socks, some books outside school bag, unpolished shoes, blame it on load shading but wrinkles on uniform.. the list is long, the material full of dynamite to test our patience. To add to the woes of poor parents, the school feels that the best way to challenge the imagination of parents is to give numerous projects to children. These projects take nightmarish turn when there is a miscommunication or mismatch in what is being told by teacher and what children want and worse what is available in the market. So often in the parents-teacher meet I raised the issue, even noted in the register a request to lessen the burden of project and school bag. So far haven’t made any headway on this front but nevertheless feel lucky that we did not go through the nightmare of forcing a reluctant child to go to school. That is the ordeal we were not destined to appear for but other one in store tests our patience almost every day.

      Homework!!!!!..... is that ordeal. Nidhi is in seventh standard but still tries all the tricks in the book to avoid it, at least postpone for couple of hours. Come two holidays she will enjoy them fully, playing, watching TV and finally reconciling to the unavoidability and finishing it early morning before leaving for bus stop. Just feel she is the right candidate for engineering, remembering the scenes of students going to examination hall with a book (vbd) in hand, trying his/her best to memorize important points but with university results favouring the method, the scenes are multiplying. Sanhita has a different mindset altogether. As soon as the first letter is written in the copy while finishing her homework, she experiences terrible pain in her legs, all hard work of the day oozes out through her legs. As it gradually subsides, just when something appears on the copy, sharpener meets pencil, pencil begins to disappear. Three broken leads and finally sharp end, the story is endless. Pencil cut to size, comes back to work. Some letters appear on the copy, then hunt for eraser begins. When things are smooth this is the normal course, in the rough weather it is flat, big ‘no’ to homework. In parallel a topicless commentary is on, full throttle. 

         The weather is more often than not rough, not that the atmosphere is tense but is full of negativity. In a parent’s teacher meet we talked to her teacher, felt if there was some kind of insistence from school, our task would be easier. Her teacher told us that she was a shy and decent student, once she slightly pushed her for homework, she didn’t go out to play, kept to herself, she(teacher) felt bad. I realized she had placed proper fielding at school also. No pressure from school, freedom at home, the homework followed the pattern of ATKT, with full exemptions sometimes.

        Last year when in nursery, she was about to get down the stairs for school, I just checked her bag. I saw incomplete copy, told her that she should complete it today after coming home. Two steps down she wanted me to take that copy out. I did not get it completely, she again repeated, take it out, shocked, I asked why. She was prompt, her answer was, otherwise teacher would see it. I had to take it out. She went happily. I don’t know what she told her teacher, must have been something like I forgot it,….. what surprised me was the cool attitude with which she managed all this. At such a tender age she displayed such skills in telling lies. It repeated, not very often, later also.

      Just a week back, she could not complete the homework, so she insisted on not putting that copy into bag. I told her that teacher wouldn’t mind, it was not that you did nothing. You could promise that you would finish it next day. She was unconvinced. But then I was firm on inserting it in the bag without her knowledge. Down the stairs she cross checked with me, I just tried to evade the question, hurriedly took her to autoriksha. She again asked the same question. I didn’t answer directly; in fact I just could not tell her lie. She went to school as usual but not before pushing me in the pool of questions.

     Why I could not lie to her? Why I could not speak my mind, tell her the truth that I did put that copy in her bag? I knew, telling the truth meant taking the copy out. To keep it there it was simple, I just had to lie that I had not put the copy in but I couldn’t, I just tried to evade the question. Why? No answer came to fore. It was not as if I never resorted to prevarication. Though I am not known to tell blatant lies routinely, I do resort to it, I doubt who doesn’t, occasionally, for a reason or two but certainly never with malicious intent. I wonder except for the blessed few all of us tell lies, in fact most importantly we always have a reason to prevaricate. A closer look reveals that we have a tendency to justify such acts. We accept or convince ourselves to accept that it was inevitable, we had no other option, that was the only way we could have saved ourselves, we would otherwise have doomed our fortunes…. so on. The key point is even people who do it with nefarious designs, keep a justification for it, they may not share it but it does exist. Where? It’s deep inside the subconscious, close to heart, at a place difficult to see. Everybody is aware of it, some accept, some deny, again taking recourse to a lie.

       Not to disagree, it does become inevitable sometimes, not to justify one’s act, but may be for survival. We do it to hide our mistakes, one leads to another, worse we become habituated to it. Nothing of sort was with me, there was nothing sinful, not even harmful, so why I just couldn’t take a simple step, not damaging at all, just a small lie for her comfort. With answers not coming, I was not in the comfort zone. The incidents where I did tell lies started coming frame by frame along with associated rationale. All those humane imperfections, mistakes, errors of judgments, temptations were swirling in my mind. To add to the discomfort, entered the incidents when the lie got exposed, ensuing embarrassment. I could also see the faces who were masters of this art, who could tell lies without a blink, with lost credibility but no remorse and a brazen justification for every lie kept to themselves. I must admit that a slight, selfish undercurrent of arrogance of being a gentleman flowed internally that I did not lie even in the safest possible zone.

        I remembered the review of the book ‘Why We Lie’ by Dorothi Rowe, a writer of international acclaim, published in a news paper. I decided immediately to place an order on Flipkart.com, our own Amazon.com. Also recalled a similar discussion that began on a person, an incorrigible liar, in fact a master, in the discussion a friend of mine referred to a daily thought in a news paper,’ If you are truthful, you don’t have much  to remember.’ How true is this!!!!. Tell a lie, you have to remember it lifelong and a mountain of lies…..ohhh you have to carry the burden, heavier, increasing every day, haunting at times.

     The storm continued, memories moving…..and yes, I suddenly stumbled upon a simple lead, surprised how I missed it, may be because as we grow our intellectual prowess takes us away from simple, beautiful things in life. So many times most of us must have experienced, the incidents when we found it hardest to tell a lie………to our parents. You cannot do it. Not that we fear that they will pick the lie, instantly, which in fact is true but the guilt of doing it is highest, worse often they pretend to be normal in spite of picking it. They don’t say anything on the hurt we cause to them by doing this, and this is the most troubling factor. As you grow you realize they are the ones who love you most, hurting them like this, extremely difficult. You cannot lie to those who love you most. I got the answer, what the book will tell me, I don’t know but the lesson I learnt is you cannot lie to your children because they love you most. So simple and so easily lost in mundane affairs.

The other side is, our parents forgave us for our lies ……

But…….. our children will not.