The Caviar Chronicles

Dear Genius Children,

I am writing to you on behalf of my generation – the generation who almost did it all, but did not. You see we come from a place where some of our peers reached international levels of greatness. Aishwarya Rai starred in Hollywood movies, we’ve had a few Indians walk the Hollywood red carpet, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati made it Internationally in tennis and we’ve had few grow into Olympic winners. These were things we didn’t realise could actually happen. We were the generation that grew up playing in building compounds, reading in open air, under trees or by the sea. We were dreaming when we should have been planning, so now we are planning for you.

With you, our children, we have higher hopes. We know you are smarter, brighter and better looking than us. We don’t want you to waste your time playing in the building compound. Forget about the fact that you might get run over by a car or bitten by a mosquito, but more importantly, you might miss out on an opportunity that someone else may grab. You might not swim an extra hour, or study one more chapter.

Someone might race ahead of you, and you might get left behind.

We want you to wear better clothes than us, and eat healthier. Even though we sat in our balconies with ice-cream dripping down our elbows, we prefer that you avoid sugar as you may not sleep on time. And therefore you may not wake up on time and in turn, not have a fruitful day. We want you to be those international geniuses and you will thank us one day. Although you may not have a childhood to look back on, you will thank us for at least ensuring that you tried....

And you may not be aware of your talents and strengths, but we are. We know you can win that competition, even though you haven’t yet, your best is yet to come. We know you can play an instrument better or swim the fastest, although you may hate the sport or vocation presently. It will pass, you will excel. We just know it.

Trust us when we tell you, we wasted away our lives. We took long walks and collected leaves and pebbles and talked endlessly with our friends. We drew and we read and we even painted. We played games like saath patthar and chor police and I can’t even believe we did that for hours. We played in the rain without raincoats and then huddled together at night as we sneezed in the cold. Our parents didn’t even fret.

I really wonder why. We wrote diaries and journals and kept them locked up in our desks, with pictures and articles that we cut out to paste. And we just wasted our entire youth doing nothing.

Look at the lives we have given you all, our amazing children. We have been teaching you ever since you were born. We pushed you to walk so you walked a few days before our friends’ children did. We pushed you to master every stroke in the pool, to cycle without two wheels before you could run properly. And of course we sent you to classes to learn to run well. We had a teacher teach you how to play chess and how to play just about anything. So you now know how to kick a ball, hit a ball and toss a ball. You know how to ride and bike and ski. You know how to sing and dance and act. And you have medals and certificates to show for it all.

You have all this today. As children, all we had, was time.If you go to all your classes, as a treat we will let you be on the iPad, the computer or watch TV. That’s how kind and thoughtful we are. What did we get as a treat? A family outing maybe? To the movies or a park or a drive!

So, understand where we’re coming from. We mean well. You will have accolades to show to the world one day. You will have careers and medals and certificates. And what doesn’t burn you out; will only make you stronger. What do we have to show for ourselves? We have only you.