When will Indian men grow up?

Never, say the ladies who have seen the worst.

Are they this bad, ask those who haven’t seen enough.

May be they are grown up after all, assert the few who haven’t seen the ‘worst’.

But should the debate be about this or should it be about a mindset shift?

For the ‘grown up’ Indian men have been bought up by none other than Indian moms. And most ‘moms’ always happen to be women, except when the men, as fathers pitch in, in sad, tragic cases of spouses not being there.

For the uninitiated, family remains strong in India but changes are happening. For the better or worse? Well, the jury is still out and shall continue to be for a long time because seriously & personally it’s a matter of individual choice, as to what suits me or anyone. Marriage or single? Working or stay home? Partner or live-in? Or nothing at all – a free bird! (Quite like that for myself – possibly in my next birth!!)

Thus, please don’t make me lose focus by sprouting random thoughts. I want to get back to my favorite assertion which my closest of friends have heard me say a million times.

Don’t blame the ‘grown-up’ or ‘not-grown-up’ Indian boys /men for, the raising of that boy/man was done by a woman. So like the rest of the mob-like-world, don’t be a ‘tootha’ (parrot) (Sorry @dailyhunt, actually agreed with your larger point of view), grow a brain! Trouble your grey cells, in fact the more you use them, the more they stay healthy. (Don’t ask me the details, not willing to tread on doctor’s territory, yet)

A person’s nature and conduct of oneself comes from their upbringing. All my learned friends agree on that. Not just strong women are raised by strong moms. All ladies out there – strong, respectful men and boys are also raised by strong women. I am one of them!

Coming back to my promise to myself – I never ask anyone else to make promises to me – for I have zero control over anyone except myself. I may have a bit of control over my child till he becomes financially independent. After that Boss, you are rowing your own boat, yourself – if someone like hubby, siblings, friends come aboard at will – Lucky you! Then have fun for it is deserved.

My promise to myself is that all that I did not like in my own life I shan’t do at all or do differently!

• whatever happened and over which I feel our human actions had control & could’ve been done differently – shalt be so done, differently, the right way
• behaviors, attitudes, conduct of a person/persons/male or female/family or friends – which was not liked shalt not be ever repeated
• happenings @ work, @home, anywhere which I was witness to but couldn’t stop or change at that time, would never ever be repeated if it were to happen under me, around me, with me
• anything which I did not like being done to me by every situation, every moment and every being would never be done to anyone by me

I have decided years back that this is how it shall always be. My task on my wish list had become easy to follow because keeping a high moral standard in personal and professional life was something which was first nature to me. So what remained was dealing with my immediate family. God has given me the serenity to understand my closest family very closely and I know what I can change and what I cannot with them. From this I have also been granted a cultivated and procured wisdom to know the difference!!

With family, thus, I generally do not attempt the impossible, thereby maintaining peace (!). But I soldier on with my son.

I lecture him a lot on everything under the sun. I cajole, I get angry, I feign ignorance, I act pseudo agonized, sometimes I am genuinely hurt too but all along it’s never made trivial and definitely not without reason. Certain things are zero tolerance, other’s he is allowed till the zebra line, some he can cross on the amber light but never can he get away with ‘committing an offence’. (Official police jargon had to be bought into play, after all. The initiated would understand. The others can appreciate my command over the English language (!))

As a woman and a mother, I can change whatever I did not like in my situation by making my contribution to the world through my child by raising him the right way. I am not using any other fancy thesaurus prompted word for ‘right’ because for everything there is only a ‘right’ & a ‘wrong’, a ‘black’ & ‘white’ – why think of a ‘grey’? Why trivialize relationships by not keeping them honest – right, white. Please add: real/sincere/genuine/above-board/decent/true/ethical/fair/frank – to the list. Nay Sayers needn’t take out their sharpened knives to have a duel with me. For even here, there’s only one right. The arguments and face-offs can be said to be controversial, to be disputable, to be the line of reasoning but darlings, you are resorting to all of this because you know it isn’t accepted!!

That’s all your honor!

Love to be dramatic! I am called ‘filmy mom’ by my son, though there’s nothing make-believe in my upbringing of him, never shown him mirages, never let him tread the path of deceit – neither in school nor out of it, nor now in his Uni, never with his friends, never let him be ungrateful, nor flamboyant for no reason.

I’d rather re-phrase my title too:

When will Indian moms raise grow up men?

I am rowing my boat myself. Willing to take on passengers…any takers?