Parents of a bygone era

KC Verma

A peculiar aspect of living in a high-rise condominium is that one never really gets to know all of one’s fellow residents. Not even their names. Thus, in our condominium, I am called ‘Uncle’ by some and addressed as ‘Bhai Sahib’ by others. The children annoyingly call me ‘Baba’ or ‘Dada’. They crawl all over the place, getting underfoot on skates, on bicycles and while playing cricket. I encounter them everywhere — in the garden, in the lift and in the walking area. I see the kids going to school, sullenly walking behind parents, who carry their bulging schoolbags.

Just the other day, a teenaged girl approached me while I was waiting for the lift. She asked me the time, so I pointed at the clock hanging on the wall. She asked me the time again. ‘The clock is right there, my dear,’ I said. She looked at the clock and said primly, ‘I can’t tell the time from that round thing. I am used to only digital devices.’

Another day, I observed a young boy who was riding a bicycle with flat tyres. I told him that they needed to be inflated. He seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. And nor did his father, who came by a bit later. He thanked me for noticing the flat tyres and promised to buy new ones. When I told him that he only needed to pump air into them, he asked, ‘Uncle, how much psi pressure is recommended?’ I told him that it was clearly written, ‘Inflate hard’. ‘Ah, so it’s not my son’s fault,’ the father said. He added proudly and irrelevantly, ‘My son is among the youngest code writers in his school.’

When my elder daughter was about eight, her school uniform included a necktie, and I taught her how to knot one. Her mother also trained her to dress herself and tie her shoelaces. I assumed that all parents similarly teach their children. But no! In our condominium, I find quite a few children running around with their laces undone. Whenever I stop a kid to prevent him from tripping, he asks me to tie his laces for him! I once saw a woman doing up the laces of her young son; I suggested that she teach the brat to tie them himself. The mother just shrugged and said: ‘Oh, they have to learn so much in school, as it is.’

I am ashamed that my wife and I are failures as parents, and we did not bring up our daughters properly. I mean they knew enough to come in out of the rain, and they could tell the time and change a fused lightbulb, if needed. They carried their own schoolbags and sharpened their pencils. But they could never programme a computer. They still can’t repair an iPhone. As children, they never mastered the survival skill of downloading an app. Maybe, it is because my wife and I are simple country bumpkins, and we never knew the important things that children needed to be taught.

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