Some lifestyle coaches will tell you to manifest the life you want by dwelling on it constantly. If you want it desperately, they tell you, the universe will help you get it. Others will tell you to live mindfully by dwelling on what you have today, instead of what you want tomorrow. Enjoy whatever you do and give it your all, they tell you, whether it is chopping vegetables, preparing dinner or reading a book. They encourage you to slice cucumbers with mathematical precision, chew your food 77 times before swallowing and immerse yourself in cosmology if you’re reading a Stephen Hawking book. But sometimes, not all the concentration in the cosmos can prevent you from reading the same sentence in a Hawking book 10 times without anything registering.
Sometimes your mind wanders to the glory days of the past. That usually means your school and college days, when your metabolism hadn’t slowed down to the pace of an art film and you could still pull off a crop top without having to suck your tummy in. We were trim and trendy. We pored over back issues of Seventeen magazine with religious fervour and went to hair salons with Jennifer Aniston cut-outs. We were naive enough to think that if we could style our hair like hers, we could have a life like hers.
And then reality struck in the form of adulthood. All that optimism drizzled away. If earlier, our idea of cool meant edgy concerts and pub-hopping, now it meant reading romance novels in our pyjamas and going to bed at 9pm. Alcohol tolerance took a nose-dive and loud music at dance clubs invariably led to a headache. However, my theory is that the biggest collateral damage of entering your 30s is parenthood. I believe children are your get-into-jail-free card. They give you stretch marks and make you decidedly uncool. You are no longer concerned about the war in Ukraine because you have a war raging in your crib. Practically all your time is spent in drawing the line of control between your child and her screen. How much screen time is too much? Anyone who can scientifically answer that question deserves the Nobel peace prize.
Thankfully, I don’t have children. Not that they have not caused irreparable harm in my life by making my friends who are parents extremely boring. Now, whenever we meet, all they do is exchange notes about kindergarten ratings and bedtime stories. They could write an entire thesis on this strange, mythical creature called ‘Peppa Pig’, who has made my life miserable. If I ever meet this pig, I would not hesitate in turning it into pork vindaloo. Often, you don’t make your children smarter; they just make you less smart.
Sometimes my friends bring their children along for our outings. Unfailingly they ask them, “Do you remember this aunty?” The kids stare at me with no sign of recognition. Since I’m hopeless at baby talk, I try to talk to them as adults, woman-to-woman. When my friend informed me that her daughter had just gone on a fishing trip, I told her about my childhood days fishing in the river behind our home. Within moments, she was bawling for her mother’s iPad. Another time, I tried reading my niece a bedtime story. My cousin thanked me for putting her to sleep so quickly. The verdict is unambiguous: I don’t know how to talk to children. The sad part is, nowadays, neither do I know how to talk to their parents.