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Sylvia Khan

It's all your fault

I hate to say this, but I find that my children are getting to be a bit much. They eat too much, sleep too much, cost too much to dress and entertain and, worst of all, their superior, ours-by-right attitude is beginning to irritate the hell out of me.

Most of my support circle of Women Against The World get smug and serves-you-right when I say that, because, of course, it's my fault.

Starting with the original sin of having had them, to spoiling them rotten, it's true, I-dunnit, to the tune of my ma-in-law's drone in the background, "Yeh sub kuch tumhari hi galti hai (It's all your fault only)."

When Baby#1 arrived, bringing her special brand of light into our lives, I knew that all I wanted to do was serve and please that fragrant bundle of softness. Several million clothes were bought, innumerable silk shoes were snatched from the hands of other buyers. Baby cream, baby lotion, baby (God help us!) astringent, baby anti-rash cream were all brought from England and America, because nothing made in our own country was good enough for the little princess. It was all worth it, because she loved it. Worse -- she grew used to it.

Baby#2 followed, but was born to parents older, and wiser. Silk doo-dahs were slyly replaced by cotton -- healthier, cooler, cheaper. Big sister's hand-me-downs were pulled out of lofts. We thought we were getting out of the princess trap. Wrong again. Our little plebeian had her three-year-old lawyer to speak the words she couldn't. "Mama, poor little baby tell to didi (elder sister) she want nice-nice dwess, just like didi haves," the princess-turned-lawyer lisped.

"How sweet," I said. "She's so considerate, she wants to share her stuff with her little sister." She did not.

"Poor little baby, she wants baby's nice-nice dwess, not dirty didi ol' dwess. Mama, you buy!" she ended, triumphant.

"Sweety," we cajoled, "little baby loves to wear didi's beautiful dress. She's a lucky girl to have such a nice didi." Nope. It would not do. Lower lip protruded. Bright eyes shone brighter with tears. Naturally, the first to crumble was my husband, a mere man.

"Damn the dress!" he said with true paternal self-absorption. "Buy a new dress. I want peace at any price. For heaven's sake, don't start both of them yelling!"

That was that. A small price to pay, perhaps. But a humungous precedent to set.

Time went by. Two became four, and finally seven children. We simply had no more fight left. We were ruled by tyrants who just varied in age and size. They made the rules. We followed them. Peace at any price, remember?

Sometimes, we slipped up. We would try to reason with one or the other of our monster brood, "Can't you make do with your sister's raincoat? She outgrew it in two months."

"Share a raincoat (or jacket, or bag)? Ma, how super-gross! Hey, are we starving to death or something? I mean, can you guys no longer afford to keep us in basics?"

We cowered. We paid.

The clothes-bags-shoes category was still a do-able lot. It was when we got into the big league that the real trouble started. It appeared that a whole lot of 16-year-olds were out there on the streets, driving Daddy's car. An even larger lot of kids had their own motorbikes. It was macho, it was hip, and hey! It was the least that Mum and Dad could do for a kid who was so overworked that he'd just never managed to make his bed once, in 16 years!

"Are they kidding?" I had asked my husband, who had this unfortunate ability to empathise completely with the other side. They were not. And he quite saw their point. So I lost control of my car. Naturally, it had to be me, my husband needed his car to go do all those important man-type things.

'Appease the beast' was not a good long-term policy. Bank accounts dried up, salary cheques were scrunched up before we smelt them and, worst of all, we started laying off our goodies so they could wallow in theirs.

Lately, I've started fantasising about what might be. A sort of... there's where it all ends. We've just been shopping for the latest goody for kid N, and return home tired from all that frenetic dipping into wallets. When we get home, it's all gone. Burglars have taken it all! The money, oh no! The credit cards, oh no! Even the bank books, the bank account numbers, our signatures, our names, our faces, everything! Is it really burglars or the income tax department? We're now nobodies, with nothing to our non-names.

We are paise-less, credit-less and thankful. We, the parents, spend our days, since we have nothing else to spend, at a nearby dharmshala, for the very poor.

The children -- ah! What shall I do to them? The children become a troupe of traveling bhajan (hymn) singers, saintly and simple. Fairly interesting, but not cruel enough, so scratch that. They are put into a sort of home for the destitute, where their worst nightmares come true -- they must share their clothes. Yesss!

Less pleasant reality taps me on the shoulder. "Mama, why are you smiling idiotically to yourself? Are you planning evil things? Well, you'll have to put off your plans, because we are having a party here. We'll all call a couple of friends, so it'll just be a small affair -- about 30 or 40 people. They will be staying to dinner. So stop dreaming, Ma, and start cooking!"

"Thirty? 40? Are you kidding?" I shriek. "How on earth am I going to manage to cook for all those ravenous adolescent mouths?"

"Don't worry, Mama, most of them are on a diet." Why am I not reassured?

"How many of you are going to help with the cooking and arranging?" I ask, with a said lack of understanding of the ways of my children.

"Help? We can't help!" they gasp in unison. "We have a tough night ahead of us, we need to catch a nap before it starts."

Whingeing, pleas and threats don't do me much good.

"Don't complain so much, Ma, what would life be without your children? So empty, so boring, such an un-fillable void."

"So peaceful," I add. Yes, I would organise their party. I would organise food and beverages and extra towels, and several mattresses on the floor for the sleepers-over.

And then, if things got too much, maybe I would organise a burglary.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier