It was quarter past 7 in the evening. Anne and I were seated on the veranda chairs for our daily dose of post-dinner conversation. The day had been very warm. A cold moist breeze gently blew in. “It's raining somewhere,” I said. She didn't reply. She put a finger over her lips and then pointed towards the cat on the road.
We live in a gated community. The colony road, at its broadest outside our house, serves as a tiled pad for turning vehicles. The mother cat was there with her kitten. A child in the colony had brought the mother cat into the colony as a kitten. She was smart and grew up to be a beautiful cat. Ever since, tomcats in the neighbourhood viciously vie with each other for her affections. She litters regularly.
Jungle demands survival skills and matriarchs invest a lot in enabling progenies. What about us ? I wondered.
There are more than one answer to each question in life. They are present around us. But it reveals itself only if one has the eye to see, ear to hear, head to decipher and heart to relate. I had my chance. This issue had come up for post-dinner discussion a few days before the ‘cat’ incident.
A friend of mine had recently ventured into the field of business. An attempt to start something, especially a business, that demands a lot of physical and mental commitment when one is well past sixty, the decision and follow through, the least to say, is incredible. My friend had retired from the army where he held a very senior position. He had a pension and could spend his days pursuing his passion. I was proud of him. “What prompted you to start this?” I asked. “See Jacob; I couldn't have handed over my designation to my son. But in business, I can anoint my children,” he replied.
Awash with guilt for a moment, I realised that I had done nothing like that for my girls. All along when they grew up, they were guaranteed only facilitation for their education. They had to be on their own for everything else. They did exactly that. They chose the field they wanted and toiled hard. One a Masters in Business Administration and CS and the other an IITian, they never disappointed me. They roughed it out in the wide open world and found their space.
Did I fail my children?
Enabling progenies by creating a conducive environment is a parenting responsibility. Empowering them to achieve their goals is a step ahead. They have the authority to decide for themselves. They have the responsibility and therefore the accountability to themselves for what they have become or haven't. Handing over a crown and anointing them was never on my agenda. Did I abdicate my responsibilities?
There was no reason for me to grudge his reasons but his cause was at great variance with my convictions. Right and wrong is a matter of perception, a considered choice of every individual. He might be right.
Was his endeavour a pursuit of passions or driven by compulsions? Passions could be compelling but can compulsions become passions? Maybe!
It is said that survival is the toughest in The Savanna. Life and death are in an undetachable embrace there. Every death in Savanna sustains many others' life and every living thing, flora or fauna, is a potential death threat to another. Each mother in the wild Savanna knows that chances of survival of offspring depend solely on their ability to defeat death at every corner and every moment. We comfort ourselves in the belief that such life is confined only to the wild. We call it ‘Law of the Jungle’!
Think again. We could be wrong. They may be better off than we think. A close look will reveal that odds stacked against human species are far more than that we currently comprehend. According to one study, the entire human population is cramped into less than 1.5 million square kilometers, a mere 1% of the total habitable land on the planet where as the wild animals have about 40 million square kilometers a whopping 38% as Forest. We normally speak about endangering other species by encroaching into their space, but remain silent and criminally oblivious to the unpardonable death and destruction we cause to our own species in the quest for religious, political or economic dominance. In such an environment, shouldn't we be enabling our offspring far better and more seriously than the mothers in the wild?
Unconsciously, it is the same parenting instinct, as in the wild, but greatly skewed that compels us to create tangible assets to be handed over to our offspring in the belief that they will take it forward and hand it over to their offspring. Unfortunately, inadequately enabled and insufficiently empowered, the recipients soon waste out the assets.
“पूत कपूत तो क्यों धन संचे,; पूत सपूत तो क्यों धन संचे" wasn't said in vain.
Creating assets in pursuit of one's own passion is great, but driven by compulsions to crown the progeny may not always yield intended results. Each Empire and each Kingdom of the past bears testimony to this profound truth.
Pursuit is a personal choice and compulsion a state of helplessness.
I have no crown to handover.
Additional Input
For those interested
The planet can be divided as follows
Land mass -149 Million Square KMs ( 29%).
Oceans - 361 Million Square Kms (71%).
Of the total landmass (149 Million Square KMs)
106 Million Square KMs (71%) is habitable.
15 Million Square KMs (10%) is Glacier
28 Million Square KMs (19%) is Barren Land
Of all the habitable land in the world (106 Million Square KMs )
48 Million Square KMs (46%) is used for Agriculture.
40 Million Square KMs (38%) is Forest
<17 Million Square KMs (14%) is Shrubs
>1 Million Square KMs (1%) is settlement and Infrastructure
>1 Million Square KMs (1%) is Freshwater
