Hi Googlies, 17/5/10

PTL! Thank you Mama Mary!

Sunday Mirror in Herald printed ‘The Modern Mother’ yday. Posting it today for you to read. The editor had a word of praise: I am carrying the article on Mother in Mirror, 16 May issue. It is well written, keep sending such articles, simple yet superb.
My middle ‘The Tamarind Tree’ shd hopefully come in my fortnightly slot i.e. May 21st. Shall post it on 24th.
We went for a tiatr ‘Chol-Ia-London’ yday at Kala Academy. It was hilarious but Baby was not comfortable and so our attention got disturbed. Next time, only Glenn & I will go for these kind of shows. Kirsten can baby-sit for us; he’s old enough now. Later, after the show, we took a round at the jetty; I clicked a few photos there.
I got news that Tombat is resuming in June. Have asked Sharmila to make me an appointment. Hope I can get a weekly slot as I just love writing the middles and now the short stories are also shaping up well. In fact, I am thinking of coming out with a book of short stories but that is being too ambitiousJ
Enjoy the article. Comment please.

From the heart.
Auriel.
Article follows:

The Modern Mother

I was listening in to the messages relayed on the radio on International Mother’s Day (May 9), when I was highly amused to hear a caller complaining about his mother. He said she was always nagging him and he was fed up with the harsh treatment. Much to my delight, the RJ countered that by saying that it was a common way for mothers to show their fierce love and protectiveness for their children.
Yes, as a mother, I totally agreed with the RJ. No doubt, it is because of our love that we attempt to mould our children into good persons. It is a difficult task since we are not perfect ourselves and often sadly out of ‘sync’ with the times.
‘Mama knows best’ – this used to be our slogan when we were growing up. We listened to our mothers, went to them for ideas and ideals, cried on their shoulders if things went wrong and hugged them around the waist when things went right. Oh, we were tempted many a time, but we always remembered their words of caution and behaved with propriety.
Today, mothers are losing this power over their kids. And why not, when they themselves are not around much to wield that authority. A tired mother, back from work, cannot hope to compete with an over-energetic and hyper-smart prodigy. Most probably, after a minor tussle of wits, she gives in, guilty to have left her child the whole day in the hands of servants or worse still, all by himself.
Modern mothers work outside their homes as well as in the home. There seems to be no respite for them at both ‘places of work’. The husband continues to be the factory worker/businessman outside the home and the hide-behind-the newspaper ‘guest’ in the home. He ‘visits’ for three-four hours in the night, has his dinner in front of the TV, then yawns himself to bed. The next day he wakes up to bed tea, a piping hot breakfast and an extra-large tiffin to carry off to work.
In contrast, look at the plight of the modern mother. She wakes up before the proverbial cock to prepare not only breakfast for her family but also their respective tiffins for work and school. She cuts and sautés the preliminary items for the midday meal if she is privileged to come home to cook it in her afternoon break, otherwise it is a whole meal that she has to prepare in advance in addition to breakfast and tiffins. Then she hurries off to work after giving proper instructions to the maid (if she is fortunate to have one, that is!). After a slogging and mind-boggling day at the office, she detours daily to the market to replenish her larder before returning home. Once home, she has to referee endless arguments of her kids, supervise their homework, besides getting the dinner ready for them in time. If a child has to be bathed or a shirt button is loose, Mom is commissioned into service. It is amazing how engrossed Dad becomes in the paper/ TV/computer and how well the kids are conditioned not to disturb him at all costs.
For stay-at-home Moms, it is no different; the only plus point is that they have more time to do the jobs listed above. It is a rare Mom that is blessed with a helpful Dad.
I asked a neighbor of mine why she puts up with it and, believe me or not, she said it is her duty to do everything. So she plods on smiling outwardly and grumbling inwardly. The husband of a modern mother has his bread buttered on both sides – a wife to cook, clean, baby-sit and also bring in the big bucks!
A child needs the undivided attention of his mother for the first five years – not a stressed out, frustrated woman who has got the worst of both sides. I am told, in Japan, mothers are asked to work from home during the first five years of their child’s life and even the father is not allowed any overseas job in that time frame. Times have changed, technology has advanced. When are our attitudes toward women, their work and their worth ever going to change? Most women seem to be tolerating this discrimination while fighting for other rights. Will 33% reservation really make any difference to the average woman who cannot even raise her voice to fight injustice in her own home? When will women ever be ‘equal’ to men in this important area of their lives?
I salute all mothers for their love, dedication and sacrifice to their families at the cost of their own personal freedom but I also wish them a lot of God’s grace to change their future for the better without compromising on family values.

This came today so am pasting it unedited.

THE TAMARIND TREE

There she stands, in the corner of my huge building complex, aged yet strong, her withered bark curled and crusty. A strong sturdy tree she once was and decades have not diminished that power. But there is a deep sorrow in her form these days as memories of years gone by creep up, causing her wrinkled brow to frown with disdain.
Once, long, long ago, there was a wild forest around her. She was one among many and her days were filled with the merry singing of birds in her hair, the gurgling of a little brook at her feet and the prancing of tiny animals up and down her trunk. As seasons changed, the world around her changed from green to yellow to red. She reveled in it and in the Artist of Life who had created her and her companions. She basked in the hot summer sun, shivered when gusty winds swept around her body and teased her hair, smiled at the rain pouring down her back and waved out with dainty hands to the clouds that brought relief to the scorched earth.
Birds would seek refuge in her, making homes for their tiny ones in the nooks and crannies of her magnificent body. She protected them with the fierce love of a mother for her child. And delighted with the mother birds when the fledglings took their maiden flight, falling clumsily to her lower branches. Often, squirrels ran up and down her trunk, calling out to each other as they played ‘Catching Cook’ and ‘Hide-n-Seek’ with gay abandon. They would nibble nuts and berries hidden in her cavities for the winter nestling contently, safe in her warmth.
Ah, those days were long gone and so were the birds and the squirrels. Her companions had been chopped down mercilessly to make way for the concrete jungle that were homes to the human race. ‘Why did you spare me’, the tamarind tree seems to cry to them. ‘I can’t bear this life’. I watch her weighed down by the abundant fruit she yields every summer and can almost feel her sadness. It bespeaks of the horror that is called progress. Development at the cost of Life.
The children of my complex run to the tamarind tree every morning and pelt her with stones. She endures their unkind ways because she knows they desire her fruit. Maybe that is why I am still alive, she muses. Because I am useful to them. My friends were not needed anymore. And not for a single moment did they consider the life of those innocent, helpless birds and squirrels.
Once in a blue moon, a band of monkeys come and assemble in her branches. They too are out for the fruit and leaves, it appears. The tamarind tree shows delight to see a shadow of her former life reappear but it is short-lived. Having used her, they leave without even a ‘Thank You’. They ravage and plunder just like their human cousins.
Still, the tamarind tree smiles her sad smile as she awaits the final stroke of doom. It almost seems as if she wants it now and I can understand why.
When you are unwelcome, you do not want to prolong your stay. You hope for a better place, a warmer welcome somewhere else. Life is like a prison for a living entity like her. Life hurts when she knows the future of human life without her and her kind is destined for extinction. They will realize their error too late, she fears. Can they survive without her? Maybe Yes. But without her kind? Certainly and absolutely not! (606 words)