Understanding Indian Parents

Thank you, dear reader for taking out the time to read this comprehensive guide on Understanding Indian Parents. If you have found yourself mildly surprised, greatly disturbed or shockingly aghast while witnessing an Indian parents’ behaviour in your family or around you- this guide aims to calm your nerves and provide an in-depth view of the inner workings of the mysterious minds of The Indian Parent.

I have divided the guide into 3 parts:

i. Who?

ii. What?

iii. Why?

Who?

Let us tackle the most important question that arises in our mind first- Who is an Indian parent? An Indian parent is not your typical ‘homo sapiens’ who might think logically, behave in a civil manner or respect others as equal (especially their children).

An Indian parent is a complex byproduct of its own father’s patriarchy and mother’s repressed anger. It is an organism which has the worst of both -the men and the women- of this great country. It is a living, breathing, abusing manifestation of its childhood’s traumas, who somehow thinks that inflicting the same injustices and pain on their offspring will somehow lessen (or even completely eradicate) their own hurt and haunting memories.

An Indian parent is not only an unreal-expectation-building-3D-printer, but also the fastest learning AI for self-vindication and blame shifting. One of the many reasons behind the ever-growing population of our country is the Indian parent, because it knows that to successfully divide-and-rule, it needs to have multiple subjects it can divide and rule over. Having said that, do not, for even a minute think that single children have it easy. They have to deal with the bigger issue of one parent creating a rift between the other parent and child to dominate the family politics.

What?

You might ask what makes an Indian parent so unique in its identity, so different from the flock of parents grazing the earth. For one, the ability to survive by solely consuming the happiness of its children. It is no easy feat to achieve such a heartless state of zen where your own blood and flesh’s sorrow and despair no longer move you, let alone arise some form of sympathy or empathy. Consumed in a false sense of power dominating the Indian society, where respect is earned through longevity and not character; through seniority and not nature; through the ability to rule with an iron-fist and not love or care, it is easy to often lose your grip over the basic tenets of what makes a family – a family. A typical Indian family might have a dearth of a lot of things- money, space, time –but never a lack of bigger-than-life egos. Egos more fragile than a soap bubble and bigger with people who are the closest. Whoever said “The true character of a man is reflected in how he communicates with the weak”, was definitely talking about the Indian parent. Submitting towards your child is seen as a great weakness in our society, and pinning them down not arrogance, but a necessity.

Why?

The best schools and colleges will teach their students not just theoretically but through seminars, public speaking or group projects. This is done because they believe it is easier for the human brain to retain information which they have learnt through the experience of hearing the words read out aloud, being involved in the active discussion of a subject and experiencing the lesson as a group. As a result, our parents have perfectly good memories of all the ways they were ill-treated in their childhood and because it was done uniformly with all the children in the late 60s and early 70s of India, it seemed as the norm and a perfectly ideal way to be raised. The advent of internet educated the Indian youth of what was happening with them, was indeed tantamount to child cruelty and mental torture. As a result, the parents became even more annoyed- how could something that happened to them in their childhood be suddenly looked down upon and expected not be repeated with the current generation? As heartbreaking as it might have seemed to them, the youth was not ready to give up this newfound right to protest against the atrocities happening behind the closed doors of their supposedly safe places. After all, it is always easier to remember our rights than our duties.

Hence, it is no wonder that Yahoo chat-rooms were so famous amongst the youth when it was launched in India. It was so liberating for all of us to talk to faceless strangers online, and not having the need to talk to our own faced parents.

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We were born to our parents to love them, respect them and then become our own individuals who are not just a mere shadow of their creators, but more than them, bigger than them, better than them. If we never outgrown them, we will always remain their children and never become men and women capable of living in this society by ourselves. We all have the capacity to achieve great fetes in life, but to shine, we have to come out of the shadow and face the sun.