A pat on the head....

As a kid, I was at work on my first serious piece of art. I had successfully passed “Basics of scribbling” and here I was attempting to draw a snake and his lunch – a bowl of peas paying tribute both to the peas Amma had given me and to the visit to the Snake park earlier that week. Amma swings by and finds my snake at one end of the picture and the bowl of peas on the other end. She gently enquires, “Very nice, but how will the snake eat the peas?”. I realize the flaw in the picture. I immediately extend the snake’s “neck”, add a spoon to the bowl and also very considerately throw in a cup with handles with a beverage in it. Never mind that I didn’t factor the snake’s lack to dexterity to work with the spoon or the ‘handle’ in the cup.  But here it was, my first masterpiece .. a snake with a clearly distended and dislocated neck and his delightfully appetizing bowl of peas. Amma smiled, gave me a pat of my head and went ahead to preserve her little Pablo Picasso’s first piece of art, only to…. I think severely embarrass me by showing it to my friends through teenage and adulthood. I knew amma had a vicious plan….i should have seen it coming..

Here I am several years later, looking at Abhi’s drawing which seems to be a collection of fingerprints gathered in the shape of a tree or bush. I feel the need to preserve it. :)

But nevertheless, the pat had one effect…it encouraged me …to draw…and derive some sense of accomplishment as I drew. The pats I had received did not create any dents in the world of art, but nevertheless they have encouraged me to have a hobby that I could immerse myself in peaceful distraction …To that end, they were completely worth it.

And so, I shall write today about encouragement and support…the little pats on the head…

I am not implying that we need to make this world one big happy family that it probably isn’t. In a scenario of competitive evaluation, there is a need to preserve our winning advantage or protect the recipe for the secret sauce. But everywhere else, effective successful partnerships be it personal or professional involve us working together mindful of a common goal, valuing each other and extending that encouragement and support when needed. We often remember these when we are playing as a team or working as a team. But its equally and sometimes more important to mirror this spirit in personal lives too. We don’t thank as much, express our gratitude as much to the people most important in our lives for their presence and support.  Sometimes we need to thank them for just being themselves.

Learning on a job is not trivial. And here I am on one of my most important and toughest jobs that I have no clue of…Being a mother. There are moments of success, moving targets, forgotten glories, dealing with a very tough but small person, a whole big mess, déjà vu of cleaning all the time, getting acclimatized to voice frequencies only bats used to hear earlier and much more….and every mom reading this will relate to what I say.  

After a 2.5 hour battle with Abhi at his bath tub, I finally dressed him up…Abhi was pretty upset, I was too…Feeling sucked up of all energy, I sank into the couch silent, contemplative and stressed next to B who was thoroughly immersed in his new TV series. With Abhi next to me still in an angry and sad whimper, I slowly start ranting about how stressed I am and that ‘everyone else’ is happily watching TV while I still need to load the dishwasher and it goes on and on…With the TV paused, B turns around and gives me a little pep talk on how awesome a mother I am, how far I have come along, all the positive moments, and that we can go out for dinner :) ….and finally sweetly manipulates me to load the dishwasher while he finishes up with just a tiny ‘10 minutes’ of his TV show.  As much of sweet manipulation that it could have been, it served as the pat on the head, a reminder that someone is watching and stopped short to encourage.

Abhi doesn’t speak a whole lot…or as much as I want to hear him, but strangely in the last 5 days, he has been chanting two songs non stop “is-see bis-see pider” and “Appe-thi-thi-yee-yaw” …He hasn’t quite comprehended what ‘Piders’ are or what birthdays are or that Amma’s bday was coming up…But he sang his Happy Bday to you (also sounds as Appe-thi-thi-yee-yaw) to its full glory. It served as that pat on the head that something is going right.

Over the last couple of months, I have been preoccupied on several fronts…A big move, some new challenges and lots of uncertainty. I haven’t written much in this space. This post is in gratitude to an encouraging pat from a friend who stumbled on this page. Thank you!! :)