About two months back, when my uncle’s family visited us, I started writing a post “Obnoxious children- the disheartening degeneration”. Howsoever, I did not finish that post. They left a day before they were supposed to leave.
Now, I will..
I accompanied my parents and my Uncle’s family to an amusement park yesterday. Weirdly. Only very reluctantly, I accepted to humour my 10 year old cousin. I did not want to go for 2 reasons..
a)I don’t like, my dad pampering any other kid in this world.
b)I can’t stand my dad pampering any other kid in this world.
But this post is not about my obdurate possessiveness.
The kid expressed his itch to go to the park at 7:30 pm. The whole family heeded to the erratic whim of the child and decided to go. I reconciled, only to humour my dad.
There was a place “Downtown” in the park. It had about 15 ridiculous games for children. Ridiculous, because they had “zero” creativity quotient. Each game was 20 rupees. This kid went to each game, played, very quickly, lost every game, looked at my mom or his, took the money and gave it. At every game, the same thing happened. It started to get on my nerves.
Two things again..
a)He did not understand the value of money. All he had to do was to "look" at the elders. *shrug with dejection*
b)He did not seem to enjoy ‘one bit’ of any game. The games lacked variety and he got to play them too easily! *matter-of-factly shrug*
I looked around. What I saw petrified me. There were around 25 other kids doing exactly the same thing.
NONE of them had “that” glee in their eyes. That mirth, that “we” had in your eyes, when we played similar such games during childhood.
NONE of the parents were participating in the child’s pursuit, some were yelling into their cell phones, mothers were discussing fake gold ornaments and mothers-in-law, some others looked blankly, just blankly.
After his splurge pursuit at the games, now he wanted pink fluffy candy. His Mom bought him that ‘and’ stale popcorn. He finished both, before we came out of that subdivision. I was reminded of a poem we had in the fifth standard- “The Goops”.
I laughed.
Each ride--Rs.30. He picked 4 rides from the list. Now, the kid, freakish than ever before, insisted that “I” must get on those rides with him and my dad actually asked me to appease the “little boy”!
While we were getting on it, my cousin said “Akka, I’m going to bunk school tomorrow, watch!”
I sneered.
He was all okay till we got down. I think. [I had closed my eyes and all other outward senses till I got down the ride.]
After we descended the ride, he told his dad that he felt like puking. I could actually see him “trying”. Anyway the ride had made us queasy;nauseated, so he did not have to try hard and to add to it, he had eaten the pink fluffy thingy that made things all the more easy.
He cried cacophonously throughout the car ride. My dad told his brother to allow the kid to bunk on monday. I suspect I’d seen a smirk on his face. My Mom called up today. The kid was playing in their cellar. He had bunked school.
I wanted to eat Uncle Chips on Saturday. My mom served dry fruits with evening coffee. I fussed for chips. She said it’s too late to go out of the house. It was 5 pm. I decided to go on hunger strike. She gave me a stern look, complained to my dad and also to my brother. I ate those dry fruits at 5:30.
Parents pamper their kids irrationally to cover up their insecurities.
I’ll spank my kids. I’ve resolved.
He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes..
P.S:What I've written above is a toned down version of what actually happened.
My cousin gave an award winning performance.Lesser mortals like me are unqualified to give an account of his brilliant acting.I've seen VERY few moviews to understand the nuances of acting.
