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Choices are bad. Choices drive you crazy. Choices give you anxiety. Big anxiety.

It’s choices that have been troubling us over the past few months. This coming academic session the children will step into their first Board-exam year. They had to make subject choices and helping them make that decision drove us all to distraction. If you’re wondering why I didn’t simply ask them, tell me, do you really think a 13-year-old is equipped to make a life-decision like this one?

To be fair, it is possible but only for a child who is sorted, who has clear likes and dislikes, a clear path ahead of him. But what of the one who hasn’t yet formed a picture of the path he wishes to tread but can do reasonably well at whatever he takes up? How does he choose?

We’ve been going back and forth over their options in an attempt at selecting the least stressful one while not closing any doors to them later in life. We’ve done career counselling and aptitude tests but in the end the decision is so much more than all of that.

It is tempting to stick to the (generally perceived) educational Holy Trinity of science-maths-computers. Every reasonably decent student does that. And yet I just wasn’t convinced. Part of me argued why a child should study stressful subjects he has no interest in just because he can? Wouldn’t it be better to allow him time to focus on what he truly enjoys? The other part of me wondered if it was too early to close doors by quitting even one of the elements of the Trinity.

Seriously, when it comes to decisions I’m Chidi. From The Good Place. Have you watched it? If you haven’t, suffice it to say that I find making decisions very very hard, specially when it comes to the children, even more when the decisions will have long-term implications on their careers and lives.

Anyhow, based on what they said, taking into account their likes and dislikes, their interest, their aptitude, their attitude, their capacity for hard work, also discounting peer pressure and societal norms and tempering all of that with doses of practicality, we have together made the choice.

Fingers crossed now.

The pressure on the children is incredible. And no matter how cool we are, how much we tell them that grades don’t matter, it doesn’t ring true given the the whole world’s obsession with them. During one long tearful conversation N said as much, ‘No matter what you say,’ she had said, ‘grades matter. Maybe not to you, but they matter to my teachers, to my friends and to everyone else. And so they have to matter to me.’

The race has become only too real. Already.

As parents our goal should be to keep our heads above water, to make sure our children make the correct choices, to ascertain that they don’t get overwhelmed, or give in to panic with this whole ‘It’s-our-first-boards-exam’ thing. That’s what I’m going to do.

We have to try our darndest to help our children stay focussed on their own individual races, rather than joining in the ones laid out by their schools, their peers, the society or even their own siblings.

A few Sundays back H and I happened to sit down together to watch Scent of a Woman. The film is about the relationship between Charlie, a young student and an old cantankerous ex-armyman played by Al Pacino.

I won’t go into the entire story but what caught our attention was Charlie’s dilemma. At school he witnesses some students playing a humiliating prank on their principal. He is spotted by a teacher and is called in for questioning where he refuses to divulge the names of the culprits despite the principle trying to bribe him. He then has to face a disciplinary committee hearing with the threat of expulsion. However, he holds his ground, refusing to tell on his peers even though they never were too kind to him.

So why didn’t Charlie speak up? asked H. After all he wasn’t lying or trying to get anyone in trouble. Besides, they were a bunch of not-so-pleasant boys who had played a prank and they deserved to be punished.

I was glad he listened to Al Pacino’s closing speech. And I have to quote it here because whatever I say wouldn’t be a patch on this:

“I don’t know if Charlie’s silence here today is right or wrong. I’m not a judge or jury. But I can tell you this: he won’t sell anybody out to buy his future!! And that, my friends, is called integrity! That’s called courage! Now that’s the stuff leaders should be made of. Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard. Now here’s Charlie. He’s come to the crossroads. He has chosen a path. It’s the right path. It’s a path made of principle — that leads to character. Let him continue on his journey.”

You can watch the entire speech here.

Al Pacino fills the room with his presence. His voice is powerful, effective, though peppered with expletives. His blind eyes look straight ahead while every eye is focussed on him and his words.

Just as mine and H’s were.

Despite that spectacular speech, H wasn’t convinced. If you see a murder, wouldn’t you help the police? he persisted, even though the cause may have been valid?

Then finally we worked it out. It was the bribe that made it wrong, otherwise it would have been alright for Charlie to tell on his mates. And also maybe he didn’t like the principal and had enjoyed the prank like the other boys, H added with a grin, imagining, I’m sure, one of his teachers drenched in paint (as it was in the film).

That’s a lesson I would much rather not pass on to him, that of laughing at his teachers. However I did realise that he was old enough now to question authority rather than accepting it blindly.

I am glad we watched the film together. I am glad it made H think. Isn’t it wonderful when a film does that? I’m glad he asked his questions. And I’m glad I was there to answer him. It’s a valuable lesson – that truth isn’t always enough. It needs to be examined, at times, through varied lenses of principles and values even kindness and consideration.

It feels like a milestone of sorts that the children are grown up enough to begin to see how complicated life-decisions can be, how grey it all is out there.

 

PS: If you haven’t seen the film you really must because this is but a small part of its magnificence.

This week I went down with a bad backache. My initial reaction was pure disbelief. The thing is I never fall ill. The worst I ever get is a cold – it’s often terrible, but it’s a known enemy. I’ve learnt to manage it. Besides, despite the cold, I can go about most of my chores. This time, however, one attempt at getting out of bed brought sudden tears of pain to my eyes and I promptly retreated with a tube of Volini and a hot bag for company.

I think I’ve mentioned earlier that I’ve been going for yoga this past year. I’ve been rather a reluctant ‘yogi’, so to say. Somedays I develop a random reluctance to doing the plank, other days I get bored with the endless suryanamaskars.

That’s not to say I don’t do them. I do. And, despite my weight (which I seriously need to reduce) I find I have more stamina, greater flexibility and fewer aches and pains than a lot of others. A result, perhaps, of having had an exercise routine all my life.

However, instead of being grateful for all of that and feeling a sense of achievement, I began to resent it a little bit. I resented the fact that people who couldn’t do it were getting away with easier/fewer exercises. I sound stupid even to myself as I write this, but that’s how I felt.

So the other day I was chatting with some friends and I said, half in jest, that what I needed was a good backache to convince our instructor to go easy on me. And BAM.. the very next day just as I was on my 12th or 13th suryanamaskar I pulled a muscle or something and that was it.

Mercifully the instructor helped me with some relaxing exercises and I could get back home. Once home I was confined to the bed with that excruciating back pain.

I’m better already, with just a lingering pain now. I’m enthused enough to go for the Pinkathon this Sunday, that’s tomorrow. I figured if 80 year-olds could walk their way through it, so could I. And then of course there’s the handsome man-behind-the-run to consider. So yeah, I’m going, bad back and all.

And I’ve learnt my lessons. Here they are:

– Be grateful for what you have.
– Nothing in your life deserves half-hearted effort.
– Enjoy your exercise routine.
– If you don’t, give it up.
– Pick up something you do enjoy.
– Oh and don’t try to sit on a beanbag when you have a backache. Go for that hard, straight-backed chair you’ve written off as ‘most uncomfortable’.

Beyond the learnings, there was another huge plus to this whole episode. I’ll talk about it in my next post. Do check back soon.