When the Daughter Turns an Adult

Not too sure whether I read it in “All Quiet on the Western Front”, it was long ago. I remember the narration vividly — a German mother in the darkness of WW 2 blackouts, is using candlelight to knit woollen underwear for her son who is leaving for the front the next morning.

The mother has no idea what will happen in the trenches and no control over how her son will survive. The only thing she can try to do is make him comfortable in the ice cold of the frontlines.

I couldn’t get it then.

Fast forward to my first job in Mumbai (then Bombay) in the early nineties. I was at the Nuclear Power Corporation, comfortably ensconced in the Trombay residential colony, surrounded by lots of newly made friends. It was the early nineties with no phones, and if you don’t call or write parents had no way to know how you are doing.

But one day there was a call from the corporate office, saying my father reached out to them. Mother is worried as she has not heard from me, and there was no way to reach me. I got a slap on the wrist from the personal manager, and I did not like it. I wrote 60+ postcards home every day for the next two months, just saying “I am OK”.

We never understand how parents feel about their children until we become parents ourselves. As my daughter celebrated her 18th birthday (well she is now an adult — can drive, vote, or undertake independent decisions), she remains for me the small little bundle of joy who I need to protect, provide, and pander at any cost. And yes, I will do anything to see her safe and happy.

I am lucky to have parents even when I am beyond my mid-fifties, and even today when my octogenarian parents speak, they first ask in their quivering voice: “Babu, how are you doing?”. I don’t get angry anymore, I get overwhelmed.

I have always thought deeply and hard about what life means to all of us. Many say it is to be successful, achieve excellence, or attain peace. It is a complex area chart. And possibly there is no silver bullet, we all need to make our meaning.

If life is a preparation to die, we need to spread our ensure death is a good one. And what makes it good? Surely not the worldly possessions that we can take with us, but rather the human connections, love, lack of regrets, an able body, and a purpose. If we see, children straddle a large part of all these.

We go through our lives with many learnings and experiences, but possibly none can rival the one we have with our kids. We decide to bring them to the world, so we are responsible for their being. We shape them, at least our years, so can’t blame them for what they become. We have expectations from them, but at the same time, we want them to be free-thinking and liberated. We want to protect them, but at the same time don’t want to be intrusive. We want to provide and support in every way, yet dream of them being self-made. It is a vortex of complex emotions.

And above all, we like Khalil Gibran believe “Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.” We want them to grow wings and fly away, while at the same time want to hold them tight even when our hands are tender.

So back to what we all ask, at least as we grow old — What is the meaning of life, at least for a vast majority of us who are not the “movers and shakers”?

For me, it is to leave the world a better place with better hands, and the closest we come to that is our children, with the hope that their calling will be far bigger than ours.

Go ahead Divyana, live the life of your dreams. Fly high, but like an eagle without losing sight of small and mundane. Explore, challenge, and build new — friends, things, and society. Be happy, and make others happy. We will be watching and enjoying, far or near, and wish you the best.