Shifting Brilliance

Discipline trains the tremendously important habit of mind control and positive thinking- Robin Sharma

He gazed intently oblivious of his surroundings. He seemed proud of his accomplishment, and I felt the pride turning into arrogance as we glanced curiously, perhaps there were a few appreciating looks too. He and his sister were sitting on a small couch in a corner of a nondescript beauty parlour just beyond our lane. He was about nine years old and his sister must have been eight years old. They were in their school uniforms which had the school emblem on the shirt and on their tie. Their uniform was a combination of shades of sky blue and dark blue.Their school bags were lying on the floor near the couch . The boy was peering deeply into the touch screen mobile while the girl kept glancing around prying to know more. Both were fair and well built for their age. They seemed intelligent and responded well  to my questions but the boy never looked up. His attention was painstakingly focussed on the mobile. Their mother was a tall, well built dark lady who was anxious about her growing years and kept probing the beautician for therapies regarding pigmentation, dark circles around her eyes.

The beautician resorted to marketing tactics and responded by saying that the lady  needed a good facial of Shehnaaz or oriflame costing above two thousand rupees to lose the dark circles below her eyes and a few sitting to overcome the pigmentation. It was around six in the evening but these little kids in their school uniforms and bags had accompanied their mother skipping their play time. Perhaps they had been ushered here directly from the school but the lady seemed very familiar and recognisable which meant they lived nearby. The lady appeared happy with the beautician’s deductions and therapy as she  promised to begin these at the earliest. Growing years bewilder women and many are unable to accept it gracefully. The little girl now looked around at all the lipsticks, mirrors and pictures hung. Perhaps she wished to grow fast like her beautiful mother to attempt all these solutions. I could not stop myself from talking to the children and so asked the boy whether he was comfortable with a touch screen mobile. The mother answered promptly saying that the boy was  gifted  and actually felt at home operating a computer and the mobile. I felt the pleasure and pride in the answer but all parents are proud of their children.

I remembered one of my husband’s colleague whose son was versatile operating the computer at the age of five. The long hours in front of the computer had endowed the boy with thick glass spectacles. I recalled another friend of mine who bought a video game for her daughter motivating her to improve her score each day saying it improved the concentration power with consistent gazing. I saw the concentration of this boy was also great. I recalled my childhood days when my mother would send us to the playground in the evenings. We would play ,jump and enjoy it every moment.It improved our concentration power because it helped us forget everything else in the sheer bliss of working out a sound body. I felt this mother would have appeared better had she  walked and let her children play in the evening rather than bringing them to a beauty parlour exploiting their innocence. These children were losing their virtuousness in the environment the mother exposed subtly as they were on the threshold of adolescence . I reminisced the workshop of Manahshakti kendra from Lonavala which taught us never to coax a  child to achieve but to expose the child to the environment which would cleverly enthuse that which you wanted your children to be. I recalled the books and magazines brought from the libraries which helped me in my growing years. I recollected how my mother learnt reading Tamil within a few days to share Tamil magazines with her friend. She was a voracious reader , the first one to pick the weekly and fortnightly magazines from the daily circulating library which helped us imbibe the habit of reading. Children are a visual rendering of their parents in all likeness. These days reading has become a rare trait and with mother’s equipping children with mobiles and computers it may turn into a extinct trait. There is nothing genius in being hooked to a PC or mobile but the self discipline of using it judiciously by debating it with reading and playing will turn one into a  true whiz kid.

What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend upon what we already are; and what we are will be the result of  previous years of self discipline H.P.Liddon