Society: Why Kavita Kaushik is Failing Her Female Friends With Her Weird Reason for Not Having Kids

Television actress Kavita Kaushik and her husband Ronnit Biswas have decided to not have kids (News). While talking to Hindustan Times, the 38-year-old actress said, " I don't want to be unfair to the child. If I have a child in my 40s, by the time my child would be 20, we would've touched our old age. I don't want our child to take care of old parents in his/her 20s. Maybe we are not maternal and paternal as people. We want to make the world a lighter place and don't want to bring up a child to this overcrowded city and throw him in the struggles of Mumbai."

This is one of the most ridiculous excuses one could make for such a decision. Even by going with her logic; by the time her child would be 20, she would be in her 60s and people in 60s do not really need old-age care, unless one is sick. Old age care comes much later. By the time she and her husband would be really that old when they would need old-age-care, her child would be in his later 30s and perfectly ripe for being able to take care of old parents. 

Going further, this whole logic is not proper. She can’t be sure if she would have a son or a daughter. If she had a daughter, most probably she would not need to take care of her parents. In that case, why stop producing a daughter; very well knowing that the daughter would not be burdened with old-age-care of her parents? Also, how many rich kids really take care of their parents? We come across cases of deaths of most celebrities in loneliness and negligence. Kids of rich people most of the time go settle down in some foreign country and the old parents remain at home, old-age-home or in a hospital. The servants and paid agents take care of them to the extent of keeping them just alive so that they continue getting their salaries but cause them a slow painful death with a broken heart and soul. When almost no rich kid takes care of their parents themselves, to hypothetically make such an assumption for her future kid and then making such an extreme decision is a ridiculous idea. 

Most probably, her reasons would be others. Is it that she can’t really have kids medically and she is just trying to make a cheeky excuse to hide the real reason? Is it that she just finds making and rearing babies too “inconvenient”? “Inconvenience” is the reason most modern highly educated families are having less babies these days. So why hide the real reason? 

One of the reasons Kavita Kaushik raises the brow is because of her gender ceiling-breaking acts on TV. The most famous role she played was of a female police inspector “Chandramukhi Chautala” from serial: F.I.R. on SAB TV. Police force is identified with power and masculinity and her role broke many myths and it felt so proud to see her playing that role. Of course, playing the role of a police woman she had what we call a “tom boy” image. But with this decision, she is failing her fans big time. People would now think that girls with “tom boy” image would grow up not wanting to produce children or do womanly duties. That may not be true and a lot of other girls may suffer if people start making such a conclusion. 

I would have wished that Kavita Kaushik should have given the real reason for not having kids; or at least remaining silent on the matter instead of trying to mislead other women into something which may not be right for them.

- Rahul Tiwary

[Society] Who Takes Care of Fathers?

Sometime back I watched a movie where children of a rude father got really annoyed with the hard-headed manner in which they were treated. They complained that their father did not play with them, did not do anything to impress them; but just gave them orders and found faults in them. They said, “Our father is not nice”. One of their neighbors was listening to their complains and he decided to intervene. He said something like, “Have you ever realized that may be your father needs your help?” Children did not get it and asked “how”? The man went on to explain.

“As you know, you have your mother who takes care of you. Your mother has servants who take care of her. Everybody has someone or the other who takes care of them. But have you ever wondered who takes care of your father?”

The children were speechless.

“So if your father had a bad day at office, who can he complain to? If he is tired and exhausted or worried – it did not occur to you that he has no one who would take care of him! May be he needs help – did you ever try to help him out?”, the man continued.

The children were still speechless. But their faces told that they had got the point and they did not have something with them in protest.

Well, I am a young father and I do not claim to be experienced enough to have gained the wisdom, but I do remember the day my babies were born and I was alone in hospital with my wife and kids. It was their first night and mother was not strong enough to take care of them. My daughter would cry and I would try to make her calm down. After a while baby would do potty or susu and again cry. Then it would become hungry. At times the nurse would be too busy in other work and I would have to wait. I would hold the crying baby and try to make her stop crying. Once she stopped and starred into my eyes for a long time – as if trying to say something. Then as if her wait was over, she started crying all over again. I felt a sheer sense of helplessness for not being able to make her stop crying. She would cry and cry until I broke down. Silently I cried too – pained by my helplessness! People may say they are proud to be parents and all, but I know that more than anything, fatherhood has been the most ‘humbling’ experience I ever had…

Our society expects the man to be strong enough to face all problems. Women are labeled weak and any act of courage and achievement from them is seen as an exception and rewarded accordingly. But the poor man – he can’t make mistakes – he has no right to be emotional – he has to carry whole burden on his own shoulders and not even flinch his eyes. I don’t know if we ever stop and think what goes inside a man’s heart. May be we don’t realize that a man has a heart too. It is the same story in literature, art and movies.

I think it is time when we do a bit of re-balancing of the manner in which we judge men. Why re-balancing? Because times have changed. Today's world is no longer a "man's world". Today, a man is expected to do a lot of things earlier he was not. Today, things do not work like they worked before - where men could settle down matters in their "manly" ways. Today, almost every job that men do expects them to be "unlike" a typical male a hundred years ago. Men by design find it difficult to change. And they have in fact changed a lot, keeping with the time. But at times I think our over-expectations can create friction. 

I think we have been too harsh on men while judging them. We have been too unforgiving. We have taken their virtues for granted and punished them severely when they make mistakes. We set very high standards for them and expect them to act right every single time. At some point of time we forget that they have to climb a learning curve too. Most of the time, we forget, in the words of the man from the movie - that men often do not have anyone to take care of them. I think it is time we look at men with some "empathy" too. 

- Rahul [Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal.]

Who moves the train?

We were on a train journey and our co-passenger next berth was a super-cool uber-curious kid who kept asking questions. Once he looked outside the window, felt the train running, and asked, "how does the train move?" I thought to play game; to give him a stupid but logical answer which he could understand... So I said, "There are big elephants at the front of the train who are pulling the train and running fast..." To my relief, the kid bought the answer. He was satisfied and went to sleep.

He woke after an hour or two. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw outside and realized that the train was still. And he exclaimed, "The elephants have stopped!!!" That was so cool - instead of saying "the train has stopped", he more appropriately said, "the elephants have stopped!"... I felt guilty of misleading this super-intelligent kid.

May be one day when he grows up a bit and knows how trains move, he would say, "that uncle on the train was so stupid to think elephants move the train!" :)

Wave like a kid does!

The bus had stopped at a traffic signal. I gave a casual glance outside the window. There was something special in that black car! A young kid of around 2 was waving at the bus! I tried to read him and found he was looking at someone in the front seats. He kept waving his hands with a cute chuckle. I moved and tried to find the person he was waiving at. I found it was another kid in the bus! As time passed, the kiddo in the car looked harder and harder as if trying to recognise this boy and he kept waiving and waving his hand. The boy in the bus was slightly older, may be of around 5. This boy was also waiving at the other kiddo, this was the kids’ way to say hi to each others, and these two kids were perhaps in another world!

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The cute kid in the car was from a well-to-do family. He was in the pink of comfort along with his parents in the car. The boy in the bus was also in his mother's lap - but his and his mother's looks told they were from an economically struggling family. But their personal rapport seemed very instant and natural. Indeed children know no economic or class divide - and these two kids proved that in front of my eyes... After a while the traffic started and the car zoomed away. The two kids kept waiving at each other until they lost their line of vision... I sat with moist eyes and a touched heart; while the poorer boy's mother pulled him closer to herself. May be she had noticed him and wanted to divert his attention. (Will their mothers wave at each other like they did?) Indeed, children are unbiased and pure at heart…
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Now what if we, the adults, happen to be unbiased and pure at heart? People call us – childish! I wonder if being childish is a bane or a virtue…

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This world will try to corrupt you. Stay childish.
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And, wave like a kid does!

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(Rahul)