We swap roles invariably; a transition so natural it remains invisible until, rhetorically, it strikes when we are least prepared. It is said that we grow up a reflection of our own self, yet a persistent “prick” within me—a quiet arrogance, perhaps—convinced me I was leagues ahead of my predecessors. I believed I was the “cool” one, the modern mind, far removed from the dim-witted repetitions of past generations.
An inquisitive little bug rests all day in my periphery, questioning me about things that push a hell lot of toggling of rather conflicting and annoyingly itchy questions inside my head. This continuously drives me to repeat like a vow, “Yes! I can do it. I am way cooler and definitely not dim-witted.”
One morning, I decided to teach my three-and-a-half-year-old how to draw a “scenery.” All these years, invariably, I was programmed, quite unrealised, to draw two abnormally sharp conical mountains that ended in a geographically challenged green valley with an undernourished hut, a tree and a waterfall or river that somehow passed next to the house that had a personal road.
Oh yes, the sun was either a round-shaped bright circle or a half between the mountains, as in sunrise or sunset. If time permitted, then a small boat would manage to float on the water, and a few black letters, “W” or “V”, made in the sky, representing a flock of birds. I am sure most of you who are reading this have already pictured this in your mind.
My little element watched with raised eyebrows. “Where have you seen this, Maa?”
I deflected. “Oh, we’ve just always made this since we were kids.”
“But someone must have seen it to make you draw it, right?” she pressed.
“Maybe,” I said, trying to regain control. “Now focus on the drawing.”
She looked perplexed. “But I have never seen anything like this. Why should I draw it?”
To dodge the bombardment of “Whys,” I smartly shifted the conversation to the “Power of Imagination”, the ability to create what doesn’t exist. I thought I had tackled the moment; I thought I was still the one in control.
Like lightning, the ‘Time Machine Syndrome’ struck me hard, and I was comfortably drawn back to my primary days. Where did I begin to believe this geographically, logically, impossible scenery of two conical mountains ending in a green valley and never question that as a kid? Was I famished of the “Whys” in my elementary lifetime?
Here I stood, years later, having completed the full circle of the role-swap, still teaching the same “apodictic” scenery with unwavering conviction. I felt like a single cog in a massive factory, doing exactly what I was told because that was what we were “meant to be.” How dumb!
While I dived and wandered in the narrow lanes of my far-fetched childhood, my hyper little element wasn’t sitting idle; she was building a world.
When she showed me her paper, there was a tree, a hut with a chimney, and two suns in the sky. One of them was wearing black sunglasses.
“What does this mean?” I asked, genuinely floored.
She smiled with a confidence that made my “sophisticated” logic feel brittle. “One is for your boring world with the hot sun,” she chirped, “and the other is the cool one for my world.”
I was smitten flat. Her words pushed me precariously over the edge of a huge crevice, leaving me with a jar of light worms, thoughts trudging through multiple mirroring channels.
Quite nuanced was that imperfect but unique musing from the mind of a three-and-a-half, who had achieved a level of abstraction I hadn’t even considered: the courage to have multiple suns in the sky.
Motherhood, it seems, is a two-way mirror. It challenges our entire being, forcing us to unlearn the seeds of every borrowed opinion we carry. To allow ourselves to be abstract, to reflect with a fresh mind, and to realise that sometimes, the most important lesson a parent can learn is how to see through the “cool” sun of a child’s imagination.
Ajaat Anant (Rupa Bhargava)
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