Joie de vivre

We’ve all have had days where after a complete day of slogging at the office, or doing chores around the house, sit down to wonder why we put up with this drudgery that has come to characterize the pathetic lives we lead. When exactly did life make this ‘u’ turn and land us in this pitiful state? A hearty meal with the family has become a luxury, friends that we all promised to keep in touch with are all so distant, sleep is suddenly a waste of time and we need experts to teach us the ‘art’ of living! Every where you turn you see so much pressure, pressure to meet that deadline, pressure to get that promotion, pressure to excel in class – its suddenly as if you have to be the best, else you are a nobody. We’ve all been tuned from a very young age to be within the range of acceptability as dictated by the norms of society, and in the process we forget who we really are, and go through life constantly at war with our inner selves.

The worse affected are children, who right from the beginning are pushed to out-perform their peers until they have no choice but to hate everything about school. If only parents realize the amount of damage they do to their children in the name of education, life would be so much better. The movie “Taare zameen par” portrayed all this very beautifully, especially in the song sequence that contrasts the pressures of adult life with the mirth of childhood. Adults have never been at a loss of finding new and innovative methods to torture children, right from a chain of after-school tuitions that further the attempts to stuff bookish knowledge into the child’s head (mostly by the very same teacher), to a series of ‘extra-curricular’ classes that are supposed to make him talented. In recent times there has been a sudden surge of abacus training classes, that come up with ads like “join so and so classes and your child would be able to multiply 36974537368354 and 125423573687 in 10 seconds”. Why in gods name would a 10 year old kid need to multiply such huge number, I have not done any calculations this complicated in my entire engineering course, and I doubt a child in the 4^th standard would ever require it! I seriously don’t see the crime in using the pocket calculator; in any case the abacus is but a primitive calculator.

These harassed children, mostly never manage to live up to their parents expectations, and when they become parents, harass their children to be what their parents wanted them to be. They make it even worse by saying “ in our days we never had the luxuries that you enjoy, and yet you don’t seem to be any better”. If you really want to teach children something, teach them to handle failure, teach them to take risks in life, once these two factors are taken care of, I’m sure you’re children would be ready to face the ‘cruel’ world that we all inhabit. Talk to them about sex, cos if you don’t they will learn it from the wrong sources and end up doing something regrettable. Let them experiment with smoking and drinking, (which they will anyways) I’m sure once the ban is removed it wouldn’t be as appealing, for it’s the forbidden fruit that tastes sweeter. Well I’m no expert with children or teenagers, my only experience is having been one, so most of the stuff I’m writing is probably crap, but do let me know if any part of it made sense.

It’s of course too much to ask for, to change our old ways overnight, and follow your heart (although not impossible). All I’m saying is that its ok to what the Romans do while in Rome, but you need not be in Rome all the time, learn to take off some time for yourself and start doing the things that you always wanted to do, but didn’t find time. It really helps to do something creative; it could be singing, dancing, drawing, painting, some sport or even cooking. You don’t need expensive trips abroad or paid courses that teach you to relax, its all there within you, you just need to look harder. Whenever I feel stressed out I lock my room, switch off my phone and read a good book or call up friends and go to a movie or the beach…luckily I’m blessed with friends who turn up in the middle of the night cos they are bored and we end up playing cards or chatting, till its time to go find some breakfast. In short do the things that make you feel alive; it’s the only way to put back the joie in the vivre (please forgive my French).