The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Learning to live in an empty nest
Teena Singh

My bundles of joy, a cuddly 15-year-old daughter and a strapping young son of 18 had decided it was time to venture in to the world, outside our home and the close-knit family foursome. I felt the first pang of lonely, helpless and desolate emotion of being alone without kids. But they had to be given a chance to excel in their fields, they needed the exposure to grow. They required the experience of another atmosphere to widen their horizons. All this weighed much more than the mere emotion of being without children.

I remember crying all the way back from Sanawar after leaving my little baby girl and this repeated itself for a dozen consecutive visits to Sanawar. I tried to be brave when I said bye to my son at New Delhi, when he went to join his MBA course in Mumbai. But in vain, the wrenched heart brought tears streaming down in fits and starts all the way to Chandigarh. For me life came to a standstill. Suddenly there was nothing to do.

My husband who went through the same pangs, luckily, had his work for at least 14 hours a day, to keep his mind away from missing kids. I roamed around aimlessly from room to room— crying , depressed and forlorn. Some of my bright acquaintances wondered what was I feeling blue about after willingly sending the kids away.

The reasoning was simple, "If you miss them so much why did you send them away?" Slowly, the intelligent side of my brain started analysing, I remembered a painting of a man sitting in an open prison, his chains lying broken next to him but he sat, his hands tied with garlands of flowers watching, from a small hole, a bird fly in the sky.

I clearly remember that years back I had completely identified with the painting. I wanted to fly, free like a bird and there was nothing holding me back except like the garlands around the hands and feet of the prisoner in the painting. I did not wish to do anything to break the love and care of my family. Thus I committed myself to be there for them all the time. The vacuum created by the children going out forced me to go back to my childhood and the need to fly free. It also helped me to refocus on I, me, myself and I found all that I had wanted to do before motherhood engulfed me completely.

I began my painting, my writing, my reading, my theatre and had all the time to find lots and lots and lots of friends. Once again it was time to find romance. My dearest husband and I suddenly had all the undivided attention for each other. We were back to being boyfriend and girlfriend with greater finesse and class. The cuddly 15-year-old has grown up to be an extremely confident 17-year-old. She now has hordes of friends of different hues and colours. Boarding taught her how to accept and deal with and co-exist with all kinds of people and within varied circumstances. She has learnt the art of focus and friendship. She has understood the wisdom of retaining one’s own personality while excepting others for what they are. She has also been exposed to the world of achievement and excellence and the applause that comes with it.

Primarily, she now knows there is a whole new world with many different shades and traits outside Chandigarh and she now knows how to live and laugh through all its facets. For sunny boy its an exposure that taught life does not culminate with house, lands and a fancy car with golf thrown in as dessert. He has learnt to feel the pulsating existence of men matching every beat in their body. The sky seems like an achievable limit. Enough is not enough in the learning process and it is the concentrated impact of all once sensibilities observations, actions, impressions and reactions that keeps a man afloat in this world of super- heroes. He is now like a diamond getting cut. It has become a happy situation to enjoy living, knowing the children are doing well and enjoying their life and living. While they grow with all their values solidly intact as part of their growing up and secure in the knowledge of having two doting parents back home. What is difficult is to consciously work at letting go of two beautiful human beings, brought up with total commitment, I have found the peace and tranquillity to fly and let fly.

Prepare now...

Whenever it is time to let the children go it is indeed a trying experience for the mother. It becomes more painful if her entire existence has revolved around the routine of the children and she does not have a life of her own apart from the activities that are connected to catering to the needs and desires of her children. A homemaker often finds it more difficult to come to terms with her empty nest. She has totally lost touch with her own needs and wishes and has sublimated them to those of her family and given herself less priority. She, as a person, has been submerged by the demands of being a wife, mother and caregiver. Remember, that it is important for a woman to keep in mind her own individuality, while she performs various roles. She should consciously carve out at least a part of her life away from that spent for the family. She can keep up a hobby, remain in touch with friends and learn to spend time doing things that give her joy and are not just duties and responsibilities. — AN

It is not even a matter of choice
Meet

Sitting in a group of friends, I feel somewhat anguished and confused. One of the guys has just taken out a pack of cigarettes. He offers it to all guys in the group, a few of them pick up, a few say no. I feel anguished for not being asked, not because I smoke but I wish I had a choice to say no. And as I realise that ‘not to smoke’ is not my choice, I’m forced to think — even my other virtues which I think to be mine are perhaps not mine.

Our society gives few options to women. It may consider smoking or drinking bad, but a man can always indulge in them and can still move around as a normal being. But for a woman to indulge in all, this is to belong to a ‘type’ and a ‘type’ that our society does not approve of.

So as I want to be on the safe side, I don’t even consider them my options.

For a man ‘not to smoke or drink’ or restraint in the matters of sex can be a matter of conscious choice. But for a woman, these are the virtues imposed on her by the necessity of her context. We take abstaining from these ‘bad habits’ for granted in women. Even a woman comes to accept it as a part of her conception of herself as a woman. That’s why perhaps I’m not offered a cigarette in a group and if I were, perhaps I would be offended.

So how could I know that I would say no if I were offered a cigarette, or for that matter to any other temptations, till I’ve an option to choose either way. And who knows my concept of virtue won’t change with that. Saying "no" to such temptations my be virtue in the present context but it is not mine, but of my situation of closed options.

I wish I had these options open, so that my virtues, if I had any, were not of necessity, but of choice.