BENGALURU: Good morning, Bangalore!
It’s that time of the year when all the young fledglings, big and small, have flown the coop. Most mothers wear a forlorn look as their young ones chatter and fly across the seven seas to join colleges after filling up a mountain of paperwork, both for the colleges and their visas. The parents know that this is a turning point in the lives of both their children and themselves.
It’s an empty nest and empty coffers syndrome! Farewell parties abound where the financiers (read the parents) aren’t invited and where kids’ excitedly exchange addresses, promising to ‘hook-up’ halfway across the globe over the summer vacations. There is an air of expectation and dread, because now as parents we have to re-discover our partners, learn to live, breathe and communicate on an adult level,where the conversations don’t necessarily veer back to the children.
My son has packed his bags and flown the coop to England where he was accepted into the Master’s program at Warwick. There were mixed emotions. I was really chuffed at his achievements and secretly bereft! I know there wouldn’t be noisy Christmas and summer vacations anymore. His holidays will be spent doing internships or travelling. I know that after a frightfully expensive Master’s program he will try to live his life working at a job that excites and thrills him and it may not necessarily be in India.
I also know that when I visit him, I will be snatching a couple of precious hours in-between his hectic work schedule. There won’t be any more late night ‘talking’ sessions over cups of steaming tea, or midnight sprees foraging for food as we talked and laughed uproariously into the night.
My daughter and her husband have re-located to Mumbai and now my son has left too. My house is as clean in the evening as it was in the morning. There will be no more mountains of clothes and shoes strewn about, there will be no dirty cups in the sink and my kitchen will not constantly emit aromas of freshly made food. My home has now become a house…beautiful but empty.
I think the most difficult part of children leaving is for partners to re-connect again. I suppose it will be nice to be more spontaneous (I would like you to read between the lines!) and make programmes on the go. No more lack of privacy, we can argue as loud and long as we like, our phones will always be charged and the television remotes will be in the same place. No more worrying that it is 3 am and the kids haven’t come back from their ‘early’ dinner with friends.
We can sleep undisturbed because no more young adults who ‘forget’ to take their house-keys and then unashamedly wake us up by ringing the doorbell at 4 am! I can get used to this pretty quick! Life could be waiting to be re-discovered by my husband and me.My friend Chandni Iyer had her fledglings return home to throw her a surprise birthday party. It was really touching to see how they secretly contacted her friends and her son flew in surreptitiously with his wife to surprise her.
It was an evening of warmth and frequently her eyes brimmed over with tears of joy. I’m sure her birthday gift, a holiday to Goa and then Turkey will bring forth more tears of joy!Different strokes for different folks. Even at a highfalutin party where I was performing, the well-heeled moms present were all talking about ‘dropping’ their kids off at various ends of the globe. The party was to celebrate ‘the twins from NYC’, Rachna and Rati’s landmark birthday, where there were a lot of ‘high jinx’ over ‘high balls’ at this ladies do…I can get used to this!Till next time, ciao!