Tag: teen

The Girl, The Woman, The Goddess

Once upon a time the world worshipped the woman. The gods called upon the goddess to save them for she was valor, strength and knowledge living in harmony with her surroundings. The harmony gave her the freedom to be who she chose to be. The goddess worshipping cultures considered their women, the giver of life.  The men had their own roles, they were the providers.  In essence, humans had found their balance and there was a man in every woman and a woman in every man. There was no room for competition. Then we discovered the fire, the wheel, the industry and here we are in 2017, still struggling with the fundamentals.

The Indian festival of Navratri celebrates the Goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi in all their forms for their valor, wealth and knowledge respectively.  It is nine day of fasting, dancing and celebration.  Consider it the mythological  Woman’s day celebration. Personally for me, my favorite is the 8th day. The eighth day is called Ashtami. It is the day when we celebrate the girl child.

Little girls, pure and innocent mortal forms of The Goddesses are welcomed into loving homes. They are pampered with gifts galore and in turn the little angels shower their giggly blessings and love on the family. Soon these angels grown up and cross the threshold into woman hood. We stop inviting them. Why?

Today, let’s talk about it.The Period.

Is it the girls fault that she grew up? Is it her fault that she was blessed with the gift of bearing the next generation? Is it her fault that she has no control of the when and where of The Period? If your answer to all these questions was no, then I ask you again, why do you stop worshipping her?

The Period, makes us a woman and yet we choose to shun the very essence of us. It is the body preparing the young woman for the future burden of giving birth. Nature knows how painful it is and nature also knows that the training doesn’t happen in a month. It takes years to prepare oneself mentally, emotionally and physically to bare a human child. The Period is simply a natural process that makes it happen. Then why the shaming?

The Period is nothing more than pain and discomfort that the female body goes through majority of her life. Every month she churns out eggs and then bleeds them out, so when the moment is right she can bring a new life into this world. That’s pretty amazing! It’s a supernatural wondrous quality.

The Period does not kill the sacred Tulsi plant. The Period does not curse a temple and The Period definitely does not ruin Navratri. Think about it, we are worshiping the Goddesses, they are women too. Their mortal forms probably had gone through the same pain. They get it. Trust me the Goddesses are not going to punish you if you choose to worship them with The Period. The Goddesses will not curse you, should you choose to celebrate the young woman in your life.  We call them “Mata”, which means Mother. Do you really believe that a mom will punish her daughters for stopping by to say hello? 

This Navratri, I reinvented my celebrations by choosing to ignore The Period and continue the celebrations. This Navratri I reinvented my celebrations and promised my self to continue Ashtami well into the adolescent years of my daughter. I choose to celebrate the kids today and for the years ahead.

It is time we the women reinvent faith and beliefs.

It’s time we understand that The Period is a part of every woman and we all exist because of The Period.

My dear daughter, Once a year we meet. I love seeing you in your best attire rejoicing with your friends. I love the food you make for me when I come to your home. I really don’t care if you come see me alone or if you come with the Period. I just care about meeting you. Let us continue to meet regardless of the Period. I am a woman too, I get it. Rejoice with me. Celebrate the essence of being woman, as that is the celebration of Navratri.

 

Academic Robots

7.55 am and I am upfront at the stop light on Blacow and Grimmer Boulevard. In front of me I see an ocean of human faces passing through the light to go to their school. A school that I honestly believe does believe in the potential of its students, encourages them to dream, play hard ( the school has 50+ sports teams), have fun and yet all I see is an army of academic robots. Their faces are expressionless and every one of them is looking for something on the road. Why are they all looking down? Why aren’t they talking to each other? These are teens, they are supposed to be laughing, chirping, goofing off on the road and just being teens. Instead they all look sad, just plain sad.

Today is the first day of the Indian festival Navratri and this was definitely not the post in mind, and yet the image of these lifeless robots crossing the street is so vivid, that I cannot write about any thing else. How and when did the chirpy kinder kids grow into these stressed out young adults? Kinder starts at 5 and high school starts at 13/14; we the brilliant adults have managed to suck the life out of our most precious ones in just 6-7 years. Amazing!!  Why did this happen?  Is it their fault? Definitely not. They have only been on this planet for a few years. I blame my generation, no not the grandparents, but us, the current parents. We have completely messed it up for these kids. Our dreams, our aspirations, our fears, our joys; we impose it on them.

In the name of success, we push them to succeed in tougher courses, without realizing that our definition of success may not be theirs.  Why does one have to do something hard to be considered successful? Why is simple not enough anymore?

In our desire to make the kids smart, we have made them so smart that they are now afraid to cry, try or avail for help. They are afraid, very afraid of failure.  

Parent time has been replaced with tutors. Do we as parents even realize that no tutor will be as vested in our children as ourselves. Why are we working so hard? Maybe just so we can pay the tutors and then gain the bragging right for their success.

We blame the increased cost of everything. Yes, I agree life is expensive now, infact very expensive, but that’s not the child’s fault, again it is our generation that made the economy of today. The kids did not ask for million dollar homes and expensive cars, we did.

The vision stays with me and this Navratri I pray for the sanity and the safety of our kids. May the goddesses give the kids so much strength that they are able to make this world a better place. A world where we stop running in the Maze looking for our Giver.