Sunday, December 10, 2000		Life Ties

"HAVE you seen the punks he roams around with? They are spoilt brats, who thrive on their parents’ money. Look at the weird clothes they wear, the shocking hairstyles they sport and the obscene language they speak. He lies through his teeth, doesn’t tell us half the things he is up to and is constantly on the phone. We are absolutely fed-up. Having put him in the best school, spending an astronomical amount on his tuitions and giving him so many pep-talks hasn’t helped. He is a miserable tailender. At every parent-teacher meeting there are complaints about discipline. He seems to have neither any ambition nor clarity on what he wants and where he wants to be. Instead of talking to us, he prefers confiding in an aunt who I don’t get along with. I feel so inadequate and miserable. Why can’t he see the agony he puts us through ? We don’t have the money to set him up in a fancy business. Forget excelling, we have doubts if he will survive on his own. All our hopes seem to be dashing to the ground. Will someone please show me light at the end of the tunnel?"

Most parents with teenaged children would relate, in part or toto, with the above-mentioned scenario. But for Ramola dealing with her 18-year-old son has become a nightmare which she just can’t seem to wake out of.

I was quite surprised. On the surface they seemed a well-adjusted family. The father was a retired General and Ramola was a small-scale entrepreneur. Arup was their only child. They had come into a lot of money after Arup’s grandfather’s death which was promptly invested in a number of business ventures. A fickle industrial scenario, coupled with bad investment decisions, had dampened their entrepreneurial enthusiasm. That was the time Ramola set up a separate business of her own and began devoting her time trying to build up a nation wide client-user network She marvelled at her wisdom of not having had more than one child.

The fact that he was a son, she felt, made things less complicated. She could leave him with servants without getting paranoid about his getting sexually abused. His movements did not have to be monitored and she didn’t have to be tied down all the time. From the time he was 8 years of age till he was 15, he was in the care of old and trusted family servants. Ramola and her husband left early for work and returned late at night. Invariably, they had some business dinner to attend or host and were jet-setting all over the world trying to tie up partnerships. Since they were spending a lot of money on their son, organising his study and leisure time they felt that he would be fine.

They kept telling themselves that the hectic phase in their life was momentary. They would soon be together like old times, taking joint holidays, going out for a film, walk or a quiet meal without being interrupted by mobile phones and emergency meetings. Work just kept increasing and the frenzy kept growing and acquired a cyclical pattern.

Before one pressing engagement got over, they had lined up more demanding ones. There was no breathing time, no in-between period and certainly no time to take stock of what their child was specifically up to. Whenever they asked him, "son how are you ?"and he would say, "great".They would, for a moment, feel assured by his confidence and feel a surge of parental pride. Wasn’t he handsome ? Didn’t he conduct himself like a thorough gentleman? Wasn’t he a natural with people ?

They neither saw his growing listlessness nor acknowledge the fact that he was becoming too opinionated, moody and aggressive. They knew his circle of friends was very different from the kind they moved around in. These were sons and daughters of landowners who not only had a lot of property back in the village but also access to latest cars, clothes, status-symbols like mobiles, credit cards and weapons too.

Even if she had been having trouble with him she had never talked about it. What must have triggered off the outburst was perhaps the timing of my visit. Just a day before a girl’s mother had come to visit Ramola to give vent to her spleen. Apparently, Arup and her daughter were classmates and had been having an affair. The relationship had got physical and the girl found herself pregnant. She had undergone an abortion. The girl’s mother was moving out of Chandigarh, but not before giving Ramola a piece of her mind.

The incident unhinged Ramola completely. All her meticulously cultivated masks of sophistication, elegance and control were rudely peeled off. She did know that her son was mixing up with the wrong crowd, but she had never imagined that he would go this far. Where had she gone wrong ? How had they got so estranged from their child ? What was really hurting was his unrepentant response. When she confronted him he shrugged his shoulders, absolved himself of all responsibility and said: "She should have been more careful". There was no shame, embarrassment, guilt or sincere attempts to make up. For a moment she didn’t recognise him. "Was this really her son ?" She thought with disbelief as she desperately tried to look for traces of good upbringing

All she saw was an insensitive, callous and brutish youngster who had the temerity to turn around and give her a tongue-lashing on how self-obsessed she was, how she could see nothing beyond ‘her ’business' and how she had ill-treated his grandfather before his death. She was aghast at the bitterness and hatred he felt towards her. Why had she not seen it earlier? She could at least have helped him put things in perspective because his accusations were not entirely correct. The moment she stepped out of her own self she began to see traces of his hurt and disappointment. She realised that during the traumatic adolescent phase she had not really been present to answer any of his questions, be it about the changes in his body, behaviour or attitude towards the opposite sex. How had she missed that ? Did she still think he was too young to understand or, perhaps, she had kept postponing it to a more opportune moment. Once she recovered from the initial shock for a moment she wondered if she should put him in a remand home, take him to a psychiatrist or maybe pack him off to her brother in Canada. Her doubts, misgivings and anxieties got entangled in knots as she babbled incoherently.

Confused, she asked me in a pathetic tone, "have we gone wrong somewhere ? Should we have devoted more time to him, met his teachers, kept in touch with his friends, befriended their parents, kept tabs on his tuition classes and generally been around more often?"

In an attempt to exonerate herself she tried shifting the blame onto the media, peer pressure and a crumbling social order. There were no clear-cut rules on morality and no successful recipes ensuring marital bliss, parenting, elder care or running lucrative businesses. I was helpless seeing her distraught state. I noticed that the emotional churning had begun. She was for the first time in many years looking the situation in the eye. She was after all an intelligent woman who seemed to have solutions to the most complex business conflicts.

When she turned around and said, "yes, I think we have faltered. Having a son freed us from what seemed like bondage. We forgot that it is as important to nurture a boy as it is to protect a girl. At no stage should we have handed over our parenting role to others, however loyal and well-meaning they may have been", I could see that she did have all the answers to her questions and dilemmas. Now that she was so focussed and realistic about Arup she would find appropriate ways of ensuring he grows up into a responsible young man.