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05:56 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 13, 2013
My friends in Delhi are steeped in parental misery. Their son is 24 and he writes music, wears denim shirts with the front buttons open and has an ear-ring and does not want to do anything else. He is articulate, intelligent, courteous, informed and happy to make a few bucks writing lyrics for the movie industry.
Maybe somewhere down the line he will want the very things he now disdains like cars and LED TVs with surround sound but, for the moment, he is content.
His father, an old classmate, is staggeringly disappointed. He wanted him to be a doctor, lawyer, government servant, nicely slotted and eminently presentable. Spent a small fortune getting him into the right schools, the best college, even was ready to use influence to get him into a bank when all else failed.
That's the operative word. FAILED.
Not just the son, whom Mum and Dad tolerate with exhausted passion rather than any pride but also themselves for the end result. Must have done something wrong, must have overindulged, spoilt him, given him the wrong cues, look what we have got for the effort...and we thought we were doing exceptionally well.
The dismay is ongoing and the only logical answer is to say that once your child has become an adult and is earning then you have to bow out and become a sideliner to his or her decisions. Of course, it isn't easy, as a matter of fact it is very hard but there are no choices.
He is an adult. If he wants to make music, tough bananas, you don't have to like it but you don't have a say in it.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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