TIME TO RETHINK

 TIME TO RETHINK

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

28/VI/2023

 

Summer vacations have just come to an end for some schools. There is a humdrum of activities in the colony. Besides ‘morning walkers’, ‘dog walkers’, there are ‘school children walkers’, whom I shall mention as we go along.

 

The morning walkers are with their ‘Walkman’ plugged in via blue tooth to their ears. A blue light keeps blinking in their ears. God alone knows what they must be listening to. Most security guards too sit glued to their mobiles, least bothered who is passing by. A thief can come and watch what the guard is watching and walk away.

 

Be that as it may. Then come the ‘school goers’. Earlier, school busses would come inside the colony. It used to be a ruckus of kinds. Loud honking and screeching of the brakes announcing their arrival. Blocking pathways was their favourite, as if they owned the roads, you better wait till all were aboard.

 

Worst part was they kept their engines on. Pungent diesel fumes fill your lungs. These days one cannot tolerate the exhaust. Once your lungs are filled in with the morning fresh air, it is difficult to breathe with so many busses ‘idling’ in a row.

 

Most of the busses are stopped at the main gate now. Some good sense has prevailed. The arguments given by parents were, because we pay, they have to pick up our child from home. We cannot leave our aged parents to see our children off that far. We are office goers; time is at premium in the morning.

 

The maximum distance from the bus stop to the extreme corner house is 500 meters. Still, they want the school bus to reach their door on the second floor. Ridiculous!

 

What caught my attention today was ‘Skoda’s’, ‘Mercs’ & BMWs being driven to the gate to drop children at the pick-up point. Cars running with ACs on. Some parents standing on the footpath checking and rechecking from their children…. Social studies homework rakh liya? water bottle aur tiffin dikhao. I card kahan hai? Then a sudden rush home to fetch what the child had forgotten.

 

Grandparents are seen puffing and panting carrying those heavy ‘satchels’ of their grandchildren. The child is kicking every leaf and empty Kurkure packet on the road and running ahead. Dada-Dadi are worried. Girna mat, chot lag jayegi. The child doesn’t care. Up he climbs the bus, meets up with his mates and forgets that there are folks who have come to leave him. Their chit-chat begins. People wave and I could not see even one child waving back from inside the bus.

 

The most eye-catching observation for me was a grandma taking a walk. We crossed each other near the pick-up point. A little down the road, a girl in her school uniform, must be in eight or ninth I reckon, came riding on her bicycle. She was carrying a ‘bath stool’ on the carrier. Must be a prop for some function in school I thought.

 

I imagined she would be parking her cycle near the gate and on her way back from school she must be cycling back home. With the gate guarded all the time, touch wood our colony is quite safe. I haven’t seen anyone locking their cycles here.

 

In my next chukker, I understood that what the scene was all about. The girl parked her cycle, took down the stool and sat on it while waiting for her bus, which was at the turning as I could see. Grandma, gave her something out of a bowl to eat. The girl mounted the bus as I walked away. Grandma came past me cycling, carrying that stool the same way this girl had carried it till there. She was also carrying an umbrella which I hadn’t noticed. Just in case it rained.

 

I am not sure if such pampering is needed. Can’t our children walk up to their pickup points on their own? Are we so insecure? Once I had witnessed parents sorting out differences amongst their kids for bus seats. Kids must have exchanged blows and it was now the turn for the parents to repeat the same.

 

Parents are caring I can understand, grandparents are even more. Children want to be left alone, except the ‘super pampered’ lot. We would walk to our school, fight, tear notebooks and even shirts but never carried grudges home.

 

Today, the top button of their uniform is kept open on purpose, the tie hangs loose, shoes are unpolished, the belt is loose but who bothers, besides you have a stool while you wait for the bus.

 

Isn’t it time to re-think, or my thinking is flawed?  I wonder!!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© ® NOEL ELLIS