I have a dream ...

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to tick of parents who allow their kids to make a nuisance of themselves in public!

Before you brand me an intolerant, crabby, anti-social, child hating so & so, lend me your ears:
I heart children! The gurgle of a cooing baby is music to my ears; I stop during my walk in the park, to soak in the sight of happy kids playing with gay abandon, screaming, yelling & even fighting; At the Special Care Centre, which I am associated with, I love the firm tone of the young student, distributing sweets on his birthday, telling me, that for my own good, “I will give you only one chocolate, Miss Uma, because you are very fat!”

But there is a right time & a right place for everything in life!

For kids in cinema theatres, tagging along with their parents, for films not meant for them – a firm “NO!” Last weekend, Mr. & Mrs. Kaushik, trotted off to the cineplex, to watch the much acclaimed, “Vicky Donor”, a comic & sensitive take on sperm donation. Imagine my horror, when I spotted this couple, with their two under 13 kids! What follows is logical, including the son loudly piercing the darkness of the theatre with “what is he doing?” when the hero is, well, trying to donate sperm in the clinic!!!

Or babies - I mean, they are meant to cry, that’s what they do, but that’s the parents cross to bear, not ours. Why would you expect a tiny thing to be calm & serene, in a darkened hall, with weird, loud sounds??? If I were a baby, I would bawl my heart out too, at the injustice of it all, in protest at my silly parents for bringing me to this depressing room called a theatre & because of the fierce, moti aunty sitting next to us, angrily hissing, “Shhhhoooo”!

Many solutions – leave the children behind with family or friends, skip the movie totally (you’ll live), wait for the DVD to come out, or take turns, so that one parent stays at home!

So the other evening, I attended a lecture session by a spiritual leader. The community was shocked at my heathen presence at such a pious gathering & I was accosted with “how come you are here” to “I can’t believe you came for this!” We could discuss why my gracing such a gathering caused such commotion; but I would rather express my disbelief, that for a lecture discussion, people had thought it fit to bring their children along. Apart from a handful of amazingly well behaved kids, most of the bachchas around, ran wildly around, shouting & screaming, wanting to know if popcorn was available, or were plain bored & kept whining that they wanted to go home – all this, while poor Guruji was talking about social responsibility & how we need to change ourselves, before expecting others to change! Aiyaiyyo!!!

But my worst nightmare happened in broad daylight, when while stuffing dosas in my mouth, the kids from the next table in the restaurant, sauntered across to our table, stare fixedly at us & loudly wanted to know, “what is this aunty eating?” Mentally, I am placing muzzles on their tiny, but loud mouths! You may be curious about what the parents are doing during all this – NOTHING! They beam at us from across the road & encourage the little tyke to “ask aunty”!!!

Like Martin Luther King, I have a dream - of a world, where at relevant places, children will be seen, not heard; well actually make that, won’t be seen OR heard!!!