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ShareAlmost all who have teens will agree that their world is filled for the most part with friends -- they talk, think, dream, laugh with, cry for....their pals. That is fine by me for I have seen that it is those friendships that form a safety net when the familial zone turns cloudy.
What I find difficult though -- with both kids -- is keeping up with new friends. With my daughter in her second year at hostel and with my son being shuffled (for the last time) in the ninth standard (after having chosen the ICSE elective), there are many new names on their horizons.
Earlier, their school believed in shuffling kids so that students would make new friends. Interestingly, even as they bonded with new buddies, they linked up with old ones too -- in short break, lunch time, the ride home for bus... or evening football.
This year, the scene is different. With the pressure of studies building up and a calendar dotted with school studies and class routines, the time for being with friends is oh-so-sadly limited. And perhaps because my son is old enough to chart his own course -- I have partially let him steer it, keeping a distant watchful eye.
But when I want to check something, I find myself dialling familiar numbers -- those of his mates whom he has known and interacted with for most of his years in school.Probably because I know their moms more than others in his class! Or probably because he is interacting with so many groups, that I, at the tender age of 47, find it difficult to keep track.
As far as my elder teen Aakanksha goes, new friends were formed first in new classes in school and then in the new institutions she joined. In St Xavier's College, she coincidentally became friends with an old colleague's daughter and another teen who looks-wise seems to be a mirror image! In Pune, her phone book has filled up with a host of unfamiliar names which in typical hostel tradition -- that carries on into her holidays -- are the ones with which she chatters away in the dead of night!
Of course, the school links prevail and seem to slightly dominate -- so, it was that on her last trip here, when she said she wanted to step out at ten at night to say bye to them, my son and I happily drove her out. And, as I turned my car around, I spotted a tall lean figure chatting on his cell. Gaurav, completely clued in, exclaimed, "Hey, Ma, look!"
Naturally, in a mom-like fashion I rolled the window down and hailed her old schoolmate. And naturally, as is her friends' wont, he politely answered my queries. Only to have my daughter come back (well within deadline) and laugh, "Mom, you met my friend and he said you almost ran him over... I am sure you must have steamrolled him with your questions."
My daughter knows me too well. I know some of her friends well. Now I want to gain that degree of comfort with the collegians and hostelites who will fill her world for the next...well, almost...four years. By then, I am sure it will be a discovery of a new canvas in Gaurav's life.
(By my kids' requests, their friends' names have been omitted! All for the peace at home... Sigh!)
