In the name of love for the sport

It all starts off as a mode of keeping your minions active. Let them be involved in some kind of sports early on to help them grow wiser, stronger, healthier, keep them away from gadgets and most importantly to keep them human!
It all begins one day when the minions turn 4 . The basic eligibility criteria for any kind of activity. I do not know much about how things shape for other sports but for tennis; Yes ! I can say I have some clear picture of how things shape up eventually!
Things were different before. There was patience, there was honesty ; there was stability with coaches. Kids grew at the same club till they went to college. Coaches took personal interest in the well being and growth of every kid. It became like an extended family for all. But the root of all clubs was based on growth and well being of the young athletes.
Fast forward to the current day , year 2018. Every club claims to have means and methods to groom and grow your precious lil minion into a pro. There's fitness , There's extensive training that begins at age 6. Parents who have been an athlete themselves or have been associated with sports while growing up have a good idea of the age appropriate techniques but for the rest naive parents and their kids its a disaster.
Every corner of the street there is a club who have claims beyond every kids desires. There are enticing schedules of as much as 5 hours of training after school hours. For example if the kid is in school from 9-3; they have schedules for training 3-8PM. They have intense strengthening and agility workouts every single day. So imagine a kid going through this every single day!! I am not against pushing your limits and becoming better every day. But what the clubs extort from parents and what everyone expects from kids is very close to impossible.
I am not here to say what is right and what is wrong. I am here to ask questions.
What makes any coach think that its physically and mentally feasible for a child to focus straight from 9 AM to 8 PM every single day?
What kind of expectations will the child and parent harness with that kind of commitment and what happens when most of the time dreams shatter?
I can foresee frustrated teenagers scrambling to understand whats happening with them and why the day is over even before it starts! I can see parents pouring their hard earned money  into  clubs who show them dreams beyond recognition! The training plans are supplemented with international travel and tournaments enticing parents to go above and beyond their limits of expenses. The ultimate pressure directs to the kids to an extent that they would probably stop loving the sport in the first place.
The clubs inviting celebrities to give speeches and motivate kids forget that the kids need a good coach and mentor who need not necessarily be a celebrity.  Couple of visits of famous people serves no purpose other than the greed of attracting more money from the naive parents of the young athletes. Cheap advertisement gimmicks have actively disowned conscience and common sense.

No doubt I am pro sports, I believe in everyday physical activity for healthy growth of kids in this generation. But a humble request to all parents and adults running clubs everywhere. Keep the interest of kids health and growth as the one and only purpose and priority ! Let us all leave our greed behind and for a change use our common sense to keep this sport alive.

Junior Tennis

People who know me from my younger days ( feels funny to use younger day... But yes , I just turned 40 !!) know that I always was an alien to the sports world.  There are some who play , some who follow sports; who relish the adrenaline rush; But I could never get myself to even understand why would anyone want to watch others play.  Playing makes sense but not playing and just watching; what fun is that?
For me, I always felt I was wired differently w.r.t sports. My brain is just not meant to play or watch any kind of sports!

When I got married, I knew the person right to the core. ( or did I :)) Every day of my new life got me closer to my dreaded alien world of sports. My husband's very existence is all about sports ! Over the years I let myself take a free fall into this new world. My kids got totally hooked on to tennis. They started playing competitively at young age. My journey along with them empowered me with the ability to focus, understand and enjoy sports.

Junior tennis is one of the hottest trend in current generation. Parents who are closely associated with it will agree it wasn't so "crazy" few years back-  Just for reference ,This is year 2017.
I have dedicated may be around 8 years understanding physical, mental and financial complexities of junior tennis.  Physical and Financial aspects can be dealt with humanely. The most important aspect I totally fail to understand from a junior point of view is the mental aspect.
Mental toughness, staying calm, being focused, staying positive ; all the qualities that majority of the adults fail to accomplish are expected effortlessly from a 10 or 12 year old or a teenager.
Fair line calls, maintaining fair scores , being fair , being respectful ! Yes, Ideally they sound just perfect. But that is perfect in an ideal world.
The age demands a behavior where every kid can do anything and everything to win. That is what being a kid is all about.
There have been tons of studies on brain development. There is research on teenage brain.

It doesn’t matter how smart teens are academically or how good they are in sports . Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet.

Adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.

In teen’s brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not necessarily at the same rate. That’s why when teens experience overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling. 

Now consider the same kid playing a competitive match.

Case 1- Opponent is fair, its a clean match with no issues.

             Such opponents are a blessing and facilitate an ideal growth environment. A lot can be learnt on court but controlling emotions and staying calm takes the precedence so that brain can think rationally to encourage playing points effectively to win. This would be a near perfect scenario that almost everyone hopes for.

Case 2 - Unfair line call yet calm opponent

              Unfairness for sure triggers anger and frustration thereby giving out undesirable match outcomes.
Case 3 - Unfair line call and screaming opponent.
              This is case 2 added with invasion of your emotional boundaries. This would probably result in much more than flight or fight reaction since we are talking about teenagers not adults.
Case 4 - Unfair line calls , screaming opponent with no interference from authority
               Lets keep this short - This is a cocktail of disaster.

If we take percentages; case 1 candidates are probably 20% . Remaining 80% comprise of case 2,3, and 4.

I cannot help but fathom how kids deal with that kind of pressure when anatomically they are not there yet.
Many adult brains capable of executing this kind of composed behavior fail to comply to these standard expectations. How can a teenager accomplish the same when disaster strikes. Is it the kid to be blamed or the fully grown adult authority who are in charge of the whole process?
Why would a kid not make unfavorable line calls if it means to win a match? Why wouldnt a kid stop screaming in the pretext of pumping themselves if they know its affecting the opponents mental stability?
From a kid perspective, from an underdeveloped brain perspective, isn't winning at any cost justified?
How appallingly difficult would it be for a "rule follower-Honest" kid to survive the ordeal and still grow to play the sports as an adult?

Yes its complex, and yes I still fail to understand when parents on the side line ask kids to stay calm when their opponent has made 5 bad calls on critical points taking 4 games in a row. I cannot imagine being on the court playing such an opponent and knowing that the authority who can control the situation refuses to do so !  I do not know how I would behave or react. It is not about tennis then; It is about survival instinct.
We as adults fail those kids by not providing enough referees to give them a chance to have a fair game and by not doing that we acknowledge and promote kids to do whatever it takes to win but in a wrong way.

To "sports" or not to "sports" is the question !

Growing up in India, Sports was but a luxury for every kid. Our sporty ordeal was a sealed deal starting with 'Tag' and ending with 'Hide and Seek'. There were occasional spurs of hourly rented bicycles and short sprints to the local grocery stores. It would be overly generous to say there were handful of kids who learnt 'How-to' of any kind of sport.
Fast forward life to this country -USA, married with two kids. Without any agenda in our minds, from an early age of four we let our kids be actively involved in soccer and Tennis. They enjoyed every day, every season and so it went on for years. There were skipped playdates, missed get-togethers, last minute cancellation of 'visiting-your-friend family' date. But sports became and still is the very center of our kids lives.
There were times when I got perplexed looks with questions in their minds; "Why Sports? Why all this craze?". Honestly, this question never popped in my head before. Yet the looks forced me to gaze upon my kids, step back and think about the WHYs. Is it for the so-called desirable sports scholarship , or is it because it makes their application more appealing to the prospective colleges? Do they get any extra credits? Why is all this so essential?
Well, what I learnt in these years is Sports is a religion. It's a way of life. It develops integrity,  teaches you the relevance of hard work, persistence and perseverance; working in a team for a common goal,  respecting your opponent irrespective of the outcome.
Most important of all it teaches "How to win humble and loose gracefully".

Now isn't that what life is all about?

Just another day

It was the first beautiful, non chilly , sunshine day of the week. Just another day but yet it was peaceful, bright and a perfect-day-to-start-your-week-with kind of a day. A whirlpool of thoughts for the tasks to be done for the day where zooming around in circles , priorities to be set and keeping a tab on whats humanely achievable .
Midst of all this , the first task was to drop the kids to school and then step on my gears to mission impossible!!
Ours is a regular local road stretching straight from my house to the school. I could see kids walking alone or with an adult(s), enjoying the pleasant morning. Cars wheezing slowly dropping off kids. A fine day, I do my part of the deal, send my kids off and on my way back home, looking forward to next task in line.
One thing for sure, come what may , I always follow rules . STOP  sign means a complete stop for at least 5 seconds , speed limit at any school area during drop off and pick up, never more than 25mph. I guess its not a "save in kindness box" type of generous ordeal. Its just what everybody does. That is what I assumed up until now.
I was on my way home at 25 mph, a car started tailgating me too close. At first I ignored. It's just the way I am going to drive considering the school area and timing. No matter the rush the lady following me was in I was not going to speed up anyway. Then suddenly I hear a HONK. I  was pleasantly annoyed to put it decent. I still chose to ignore. She could fly if her car could take her off but 'not in school zone' was my thought. I crawled at my own speed not being bothered by her unending urge of crushing me over to get to her destiny.
I hear another honk, I have a human urge to slow down even more to "calm" her down a bit!! Keeping my cool I keep my speed and wait to turn at my street keeping enough space for her to zoom away to wherever her emergency was. Then taking my alms to her benefit ,she honked the best she could, zooming away at more than 50 mph.
The sanity I cherished up until now broke down. Before I could turn my vehicle around and give her a reality check she was off like a ghost lost in a fog of human commitments.

There is no time more precious than the time being with your loved ones. Saving couple of minutes of travel time won't stop the earth from rotating. But one rush, one so-called emergency speeding might stop someones time forever.  All those years of education that helped you reach a level where your presence at work could be so valuable is futile if you have failed to understand the meaning of "Time" and essence of "Life".

Feelings

Isnt it true , our moms remembered every meeting, kids teachers conference , every birthday- kids and their friends, every kids friends first and last name, their parents names, hundreds of phone numbers, few tens of addresses with postal codes and many more information just a decade ago?

When we see around today; every information is obtained from a gadget.  With growing technology available so cheap, every detail is stored in phone. It wouldn't be surprising if we find most of us don't remember our own home phone number. There is no denial how beneficial technology is during times of crisis. Weather alerts, Traffic information, run-time route changes saving time and lives. But if we agree to the fact that everything has to total to zero then there has to be equally dangerous impacts to nullify such important benefits.
The brain that was capable of containing and disbursing information is being stunted with increased reliability on machines. Can anyone survive one day without their phone? If the battery discharges, how  many emergency numbers can anyone remember other than 911? How many birthdays/ anniversaries for family and friends do we remember?

Next in line the chat apps. Almost everyone is hooked on to some kind of chatting - individual & group. Technology has indeed brought us, who live countries apart, closer with constant updates, instant memory shares yet the ongoing urge of being connected with the rest of the world technically stunts the urge of being connected physically to the people around you. The need for socializing is camouflaged by chats which are devoid of basic senses essential for a conversation to take place. There is no eye to eye contact; no hand shaking or hugs. The mechanical chat overtakes most of our socializing needs there by leaving very less or no demand for regular physical interaction with friends or families. Very soon these basic etiquettes will vanish into history. Definition of conversation will change and things considered inappropriate will become a norm.

Question is - Does our brain get enough usage to keep it young and strong as years pass by? Are the next generation susceptible for increased brain diseases partly because of diet but mainly because we are not giving enough exercise and work for our brain to function the way it is meant to?

We are hindering our analyzing, rationalizing skills but as also inhibiting growth of our emotional intelligence. We are on a tack where we need a  machine to tell us if we walked enough steps each day. We need a machine to tell us if we slept well at night. Our emotions, genuine or not, are expressed with emoticons. There is continuous degradation of our brains core aspect that sets us apart and above all animals which include analytical ,rational thinking and the ability to feel and express.

Better Parent

Who is a good parent; A non working, totally committed, stay-at-home parent or a full time over achiever working parent? What makes a good parent? Is there a checklist to help or is there a book that when in doubt guides you through different junctions of life, helping you to make better choices for your kids? 

What is like being a parent? What is it like being responsible for a life; a life that you created?

There are tons of thoughts and ideas about nearing perfection of parenthood. For some its sacrificing their lives altogether and adding their twenty four hours of the day to their kids "Time Bank". For some its earning all the more and giving top brand things their kids need. 

Does not matter what path you take but every parent out there strives to be a better parent. This is how it should be.  But it is not. 

Feminism came into picture early 1900s; it tried to explain the naive and gave women freedom to do what they wanted to do. It strived to give women freedom of expression, justice and liberty in legal and educational areas. For generations this fire has grown wild , sparking every corner of the world. 

Just like every medicine comes with a list of side effects; this also had to have some ill effects around. Its been proved repeatedly women are master of multitasking. They can be the heart of their house while being the head of a unit at work. They have all the ability to do the best and be the best for both worlds. But those are very few cases we see nowadays. More than half of working women are not motivated or supported by their families to help balance their worlds ; which is again a whole different topic to think about. But the side effects I am talking about are the homes where they get total support and commitment from every single person in the house and yet they hide behind ideas of women liberation and freedom. Maternal needs and instincts are conveniently bypassed and there is a constant competition for who has done the most in TO-DO list and who has to take the next turn in the parental duty. Changing diaper, feeding kids, helping in homework, helping them brush, reading books with them, taking kids to dance practices, rehearsals, sports, watch them play, learn, and grow have become chores in the TO DO list that accompany the real chores like cooking, laundry, and vacuuming. 

I have not seen a single person fight with their spouse to get more time with kids unless they are divorced and have to work around legally to spend time with their kids.  

 Its true that neither being a striking, shining role model at work and a being a good parent are mutually exclusive nor does being a full time stay at home parent guarantees any kind of parental perfection. What matters the most ; working or non working; is the desire to be with your kids. The desire to let them go yet watch them grow, taking bigger, better, and stronger strides, seeing them fail over and over again yet patiently wait for that one time when they succeed, the desire to be there in the crowd and give an assurance that when things get ugly they know exactly where to find you; the desire to know their aspirations rather than provide them with yours. This desire , obsession, and  commitment makes you a better parent.

Do I stutter...?

My childhood for the very part has been a quiet period for the most part with practically no friends at all. One sister and one younger brother, my only friends who were indifferent to all the issues I had.

Stuttering or stammering has been stuck with me for a long time. The earliest I can remember of my childhood was tremendous pain, anxiety, racing heartbeats like I just ran a 400 meters race, blood gushing through every part of my face ,waiting to burst off my skin., ears listening to the eternal black box, absolutely no voice signals passed through ; all this when anyone spoke to me , expecting a reply back.

I used to keep looking at their face trying hard to pull the words out of my mouth, wishing it were like a magician's ribbon trick where he keeps pulling a never ending ribbon out of a hat. But its not the same. When a 4 or 5 year old is blasted with questions one after the other, stared at with squinted brows as though with the power of their eyes they could magically make me utter a word; That indeed is pressure.

I always wondered how does it feel to talk normal , like everyone else. How does it feel? Would I ever be able to enjoy an effortless speech? I always felt there was physically something wrong with me, some surgery or some minor medical treatment might cure the problem.

Some said this problem arises because your brain thinks faster than the speed at which you can talk. Makes sense but for a little kid it meant nothing. Some say keep marbles in your mouth when you talk. Some say rub your tongue to make it light. Lot of suggestions....

Days, weeks years passed by. Even at the age of 20, I was stuck with it and was so sure I would never ever know the feeling of talking effortlessly. Nevertheless I carried lot of pride for myself and never felt any less than anyone around. I did what I could do the best. The best of whatever came in my path.

My curiosity to experience a different world made me take a big decision ; to venture out of my country and hence made me land here , The United States of America. My first step in this country, at the airport I breathed a different air. I found myself surrounded with people who have different accents, speak English but  very hard to understand let aside talking that way !!

The first time I spoke to an immigration person, the gentle smile on his face, the respectful look that he gave me when he smiled took me with an awe. I was struck with a bolt or a witches magic spell and I spoke my first ever sentence to him without him "LIP reading"  or  "TRYING" to understand me. The most welcoming gift I could ever get from a strange new country. A chance of experiencing being a regular person with normal speech ; It was so overwhelming. Then on there was no turning back.

Its been more than 10 years now, I cannot say I forgot anything from my past but now when I look back I wonder what went wrong in my own country which is right in this country.  I wonder did I really have a problem or was it induced by people ?  I got lucky I came here and could experience the difference. What about all those kids who live their entire life not knowing whether they really have a speech problem or no.

I think what helped me here is the freedom, respect and acceptance from people. No one cares what way you talk. Talking is a mode of communication. There is no right or wrong way to talk. Its that plain and simple. No one judges you for your accent, style, influences, speech.
I remember the faces people made when they waited impatiently to finish my sentence. Those faces were seen no more. Speak whichever way you want, however you want, there is absolutely no judging.

I did a small research of my own and based on my memory I tried to find an answer to - How might have all this started?
This is a serious note to all the parents who have a toddler learning to talk. Parents who think their kids might have a speech problem. Do not correct them. Do not interrupt them. Do not try to finish their sentence. Give them all the time they need to finish their sentence however busy you are. Remember they are still learning the art that you mastered a long time back, Be modest. Most importantly, even if you feel its cute, do not imitate them.
A toddler doesn't know what is the right way to communicate. They learn from people around them. Their behavior , actions, reactions is all influenced by surrounding people. But obvious if you start imitating them because you think its cute, they think that is the right way to talk and it registers in their brain. Few months down the line when you start correcting them, it confuses them and indirectly they register in their brain again that they are not talking right. Any one single person laughing at the way they talk , which apparently was cute few months back, triggers the fear and anxiety starts to build up which slowly increases and creates a problem which should never have been there.
Any normal human with so-called normal speech, bombarded by questions, not given enough time to reply back would also start stuttering. This is an act of some kind of bullying too.
Not saying all speech problems are "Created" but for most part are "Enhanced" by the pressure from society and people around.

The world is coming to an end.....

Heard this one for almost a decade back and every now and then, we keep getting new dates and times for the D day. We had our hearty laughs and cracked innumerable jokes about it. 

Exception to that, I still remember some news pages declaring such dates and quite a few panic struck people collecting several years worth of food, water and other essentials. Some sold away properties believing this to be true. 
Clearly not sure what must have happened to them now but I am sure life moves on.
Several years down the line, we got another date Dec 21, 2012. This prediction was more stronger than any others. But again as always the day came and went away.
I had a smirk on my face recollecting the talks we used to have in our college days.

Life was very busy so far, slogging at work, living away from home, marriage, kids , years flew by so fast.  But the thought of the end of the world kept coming back to me under some pretext or the other. I wondered will it happen in a day like entire planet would just  get under water or comets and asteroids would come raging down and everything would be over in a snap. What is more acceptable and probable to happen. Nevertheless I felt this isn't happening in a day or two. Its a very long process for sure. 

What is the world made of? When the idea was introduced by our ancestors, what did they think, what happened to them at that time that would happen again now.  

What makes our world? Is it just the land mass, water mass? Is it the flora and fauna? Is it the humans living on this planet? What exactly implies the end of the world?

Planet as whole diminishing, getting destructed would be totally a different topic. But The World , that is totally our perspective. This perspective , this understanding is what's ending and that did start a decade ago. 

Love, Affection, Humanity and Compassion laid the foundation of our very own world. When these started crumbling our world as we know began to end. 

Love as existed between siblings, neighbors, friends, and of course a parent and child is slowly disappearing. There is a race for the luxuries which have now become survival need. A race where anything and everything is possible and is fair. 
What can explain the need of sending a newborn to be raised half way across the world? What are the needs that surpass something as  divine as a parent's love? What erases the memories of people responsible for your entire childhood and youth, people who are responsible for who you are and what you are ? What is making people behave so inhumanly towards each other? What is that evil thing that's working on every mind making it immune to the very basic foundation blocks of our world?

Yes I believe the world is ending, not at a said date or a said year but yes indeed its happening  right in front of our eyes, slow and steady at every passing hour, every passing day. 

Evaporating thoughts

Childhood days are the best days with worries about how do I get more choclates than the other siblings, how to avoid eating vegetables, how to get quarter mark more ( that was typically me..), how to get an extra turn for cycling and many more.

We were three siblings, me in the middle with an elder sister and younger brother.  Apart from regular school days , homework and routine chores we had a schedule or more like a rule in our house. Every year May vacation and Diwali vacation were strictly for village stay and visit to my grandmother. 

Most of our monsoons were in Mumbai, Getting soaking wet while wearing raincoats and holding umbrellas is a norm. No weapon can defeat the monsoons here.

Rains remind me of the "Gara" as we call it in Marathi. The ready made cubes of ice that fall all over just like a dream come true for any kid. But that happens only in few places, non-Monsoon time  and it definitely happened in my village, Gokak, District Belgaum and state Karnataka. 

It was the month of october. October as we all know is very hot, extremely hot. We were in our village at Grandmothers place customary for every holidays. It was steaming hot at 1:30 PM. The ringing of the bell indicated the entry of The ice cream wala in our galli . He passed all the houses from one corner and finally reached in front of our house. All the kids ran, making loud noise and gathered around his small wooden container to select the flavour of our choice since it might not last long. The most famous were mango and orange.There were some other like pista,tooty-fruity and so on. But most kids prefered the lip and tongue coloring mango and orangs. All ice creams were candy sticks, no cups. After buying them for a meagre 15 paise we ran to our so called terrace / roof of our house silently without waking our elders. Above we had a store room and open terrace where my granny and aunt used to put awla , mirchi for drying and cow-dung too in one corner. We took our ice gola and were enjoying every drop of it in the scorching heat. Not bothered about the melting sticky fluid running down a marathon from our palms to elbow. Our mouth were just smudged orange/yellow in an attempt to win the race against the melting colored ice!!  Sun burning hot but nothing mattered for us.

Sometimes in that heat suddenly it used to start thundering and pouring.. with small cubes of ice falling from the sky.
That day too it started thundering. We peeped thru the window on roof to see whats happening downstairs  and saw our elders enjoying their evening tea and discussing the snack menu ; which after a couple of Ifs and Buts cornered to Batata wada. Our happiness had no limits. Wada and in a weather like this where it was about to rain.. we rushed below and confirmed the fact . Wada it was !!!!

The ice rollies started pouring ,looked like the sky couldnt bear their weight and finally paved way for them to fall onto the ground.We rushed toward the crackling sounds of the cubes and thrilled as we were , rushed outside to enjoy them. Warnings and shoutings were following us as we leapt out of the main corridor and into the heaven of chilled water and with thoughts of wada . No worries about getting cold, no worries about all the explanation we had to listen when we got back , no worries about future, we were all just enjoying the present in its whole with absolutely no thoughts about whats going to happen next.

Life seems to stand still there .Lots of such tiny moments get engraved in deepest of our memories and make a special place in our heart. These tiny moments give us a gist of life, Enjoy the time in present, stop worrying about future and crying over past. 

Purely Innocent

Every year in month of August we visit to our temple. For some reason this year I was not prepared. Just on the day we had to visit I just grabbed my purse and drove with kids. With immense devotion and total contentment, I was about to leave the place, My daughter asked me if she could get some money to put for offerings in the temple. Me being a CARD person and in that kind of hurry, dint have anything more than  some pennies.

My recent visit to India had left tons of coins in  my purse. My kids just took all of them out and put it in the offerings box. I tried to stop them saying "These are Indian coins, we cannot put them here!". Promptly I got a reply, "Why not! This is Indian god so Indian coins should work."

I was zapped. I could have gone beyond any measures to explain why, how and so on. But the honest, pure and simple point of view stopped me then and there!

Life is a piece of cake when seen from a honest and pure mind!