{"id":40971,"date":"2010-01-16T07:31:16","date_gmt":"2010-01-16T07:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.tehelka.com\/?p=40971"},"modified":"2010-01-16T07:31:16","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T07:31:16","slug":"too-cool-for-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/too-cool-for-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Cool For School"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happens to children when their parents are still in the grip of rebellion, asks<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Aastha Atray Banan<\/strong>
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No lines of control<\/strong>
Akash Premson and mother Bandana
Photo: Shailendra Pandey<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nADITYA ROY REMEMBERS<\/strong> a question he asked his parents when he was seven. They had returned home past midnight after attending one of the many soir\u00e9es they were invited to. He had asked them indignantly, \u201cWhy can\u2019t you stay home like other parents?\u201d The 22 year-old musician and martial arts teacher says, \u201cI wanted them to be like other parents. My parents had big parties in the house both before my Xth and XIIth boards! I am the complete opposite. I hate socialising.\u201d<\/span>
\nHis father Sanjoy Roy, the hardworking man behind Teamwork Productions, engine of major cultural events such as the Jaipur lit-fest, while respectful of Aditya\u2019s choices, is completely comfortable with being too cool for his son. \u201cAditya once told me that if I was going to grow my hair, he didn\u2019t want me coming to his school. And I was like, \u201cYippee! Let\u2019s grow the hair!\u2019\u201d laughs the 43-yearold. \u201cIn our case, it\u2019s more about the parents rebelling against the children,\u201d he says, as he drives off to yet another party.<\/span>
\nIt\u2019s 9.45 pm in a cold January Delhi. Gauri Arora is definitely not at a party. She taps her impeccably manicured nails as she makes a list for the next day: take Gayatri for her Bharatnatyam class at 3, make sure Rajveer takes a nap at 2 pm so he\u2019s fresh for his evening cricket at the park, homework at 6, dinner at 8, television at 9, lights out at 10. She describes memories of nights like these while growing up. \u201cAt 10 pm, instead of putting me to sleep, my mother would urge me to accompany her to the new disco. It made me crave the opposite. I need order, a sense of achievement, and above all else, I need convention. I was not her. I am me.\u201d<\/span>
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Gauri Arora with her children
Photo: Tarun Kumar Sehrawat<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nGauri has rejected her parents ultracoolness. \u201cYou always want what you don\u2019t have. When my mother, dressed in tight corduroys and perched proudly on an Enfield, used to pick me up from school, I cringed as I wanted her to be fat and sari-clad. My schoolmates crowded around her as if she was Amitabh Bachchan! No wonder I am so straightlaced,\u201d says Gauri.<\/span>
\nIn her 1998 book,\u00a0Promiscuities,<\/em>\u00a0author Naomi Wolf tells droll stories of growing up in the 1960s and coming home to pale young men and women draped over her parents\u2019 living room. Her hippie father had advertised seeking interviews with vampires. What boundaries were available for her to transgress, Wolf asked, only half-jokingly. In\u00a0Promiscuities<\/em>\u00a0and her iconic\u00a0Beauty Myth,\u00a0<\/em>Wolf offers glimpses of a girl growing up with straight expectations of herself and the world, saddled with freethinking parents. Her struggles with anorexia and abusive boyfriends came from a desire to be that most boring of creatures: a pretty, thin and nice girl.<\/span>
\nGauri\u2019s expectations from her children are not very different: straight-As, clean rooms and good behaviour. \u201cI want them to remain kids as long as they can, because I grew up faster than my years,\u201d she says. After her parents separated, she and her sister, Radha Khopkar (25), continued living with her father, Satish, while their mother, Meena, flitted in and out. \u201cWe had no rules. We could be out late or have 10 boyfriends. It was all okay.\u201d<\/span>
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Rohini Bahl rejected her maverick upbringing for order. Seen here in red T-shirt with her parents
Photo: Shailendra Pandey<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nHer younger sister Radha pipes up, \u201cI had my first joint with my mum, but was scared that if Gauri found out, I\u2019d be done for.\u201d Gauri agrees smilingly. \u201cI started behaving like a 40 yearold when I was only 13 as Radha was my responsibility \u2014 seeing that she ate well, did well at school.\u201d She shows no resentment at the unseasonal growing up she did to compensate for her parents\u2019 eternal youth. But it meant a grim decision: \u201cI made up my mind that my children would never face such a predicament. Little people need direction.\u201d<\/span>
\nIn her ultra-nostalgic song, \u2018I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker\u2019, British singer Sandi Thom wishes that she had been around in \u201977 or \u201969 when \u2018revolution was in the air\u2019. Though Akash Premson respects his parents\u2019 high ideals, he deplores their disinterest in money. \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to romanticise the way they let me grow up. By the age of 12, I had seen more of India by car than my teachers had seen in their lifetimes. My parents did not expect me to be a doctor or an engineer,\u201d says 28-year-old Premson. His first crush was at age six. He remembers his mom making friends with the girl\u2019s family so that he could have play dates! In high school, he began to date Himani (who was accepted by his family without fuss), who is now his fianc\u00e9e. \u201cI would like to give my children the same kind of freedom but I will make sure they know how to manage money. My mother and I are still living in a rented house,\u201d he says.<\/span>
\nHis mother, Bandana, defends herself and her husband. \u201cMy husband and I believed in fun. We travelled. We bought expensive art. It gave us more satisfaction than a fat bank balance. We lived the way we thought right.\u201d<\/span>
\nTo those of us who fetishise the 1960s, convinced we are flower children born too late \u2013 and, of course, to those who are apostles of conventional parenting \u2013 these may sound like cautionary tales. But look closer. Even these stories are those of success in the \u2018real\u2019 world. A 12-year UCLA study indicated that the children of unconventional families do as well in school as children of traditional families. Some research suggests that it is the quality of a lifestyle, not the choice of a particular lifestyle, that is important to children.<\/span>
\nUnconventional parenting may bring home truths earlier than is considered \u2018normal\u2019. A childhood devoid of rules can be a brush with the anarchic and unfair nature of the world, or a fairytale, or a dizzying mixture of both. Like any other kind of childhood. As Philip Larkin said comfortingly, \u2018They fuck you up, your mum and dad.\/They may not mean to, but they do.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What happens to children when their parents are still in the grip of rebellion, asks Aastha Atray Banan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":40985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[5725,6198,6199,6200,6201,6202,6203,6204,6205,6206,6207,6208],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}