On a scorching afternoon that probably supplied enough Vitamin D to last a year, a slightly disheveled 7-year-old gets off the school bus, almost missing a step but not skipping a word. She barely waits for her friend, also in a similarly bright and crumbled uniform to come down before continuing her one-way conversation. “…and then you know Geeta won.” Keeping one foot in the shade and trying to avoid a wrinkle at a time because SPF 50 melts quicker than your child’s Nutella when you are doing bus duty on a summer afternoon, I was impressed with whatever little I heard. In a world that is now populated with Amaara, Aaliya and Myra, there was still a mother strong enough to buck the trend and name her child Geeta!
Pretending to be equally interested and not in the slight frazzled both by the heat and the fumes of the bus (I am doing what Delhi does best, giving a seasonal rest to my pollution masks because what you can’t see, just isn’t there, right?), I attempt to give my younger one a hug. She isn’t interested, she is too busy holding court. Finally, I get a word in, “who is Geeta?” I wish I hadn’t. “Mama, she is Babita’s sister”, comes the prompt reply as though I was the daftest mother around. Mental re-caps of names at lavish kiddy birthday parties are a blur, it’s hard enough figuring out how mothers skittling along in high heels balance the cake.
The child clearly knows her mother well and understands that she did not get it. Exasperatedly the tiny one looks up and says, “mama, don’t you remember they are the Phogat sisters.” Ah! That was right in front of my face, many times literally, the wrestling drill that is more engrossing than any Disney princess animation or lately the ‘Jonas brothers’.
The girls’ hobby, well actually it’s a ‘phase’ that refuses to ‘phase-out’, is playing a game called ‘Dangal’. Don’t hold back on your imagination just because they are girls, sometimes in our exuberance to make them as one with the boys we forget to draw a line for our own sanity!
So, while I was aiming for Gopichand’s academy in Hyderabad my girls were making alternative plans and now I may have to divert to the Phoghat akhara in Haryana. The biryani has suddenly become malai wali lassi!
Saina, Sindhu and Dreams of Being a Soccer Mom
It all began with Saina and P V Sindhu who incidentally the girls think they are better than, and come brandishing their racquet every time one or the other is playing a match on television. There is still the odd Virat Kohli sigh, but it is not aspirational. It gets the same vacant look that we gave Aamir Khan when he sang ‘papa kehte hain’ many light (and uncoloured) hairs ago.
Now most people are clueless about the real colour of my hair but it no longer matters. Instead of that glamourous image of a soccer mom clapping proudly with manicured nails that I once dreamt of, I am as far away from the movies, as I had fantasized. Instead, I am but a mom from the ‘burbs.’
“Uncle ji, idhar koi fan nahi kaam karta,” I asked an elderly man while at the same time trying to get a tiny part of my derriere an edge of the rickety seat on which he was busy fanning himself. “Kabhi chalta hai, kabhi nahi”, he replied nonchalantly, going back to the rhythmic movement of the newspaper. I was in a stadium that looked even pre-1983 Asiad, dark walls with peeled paint waiting for a final nudge to fall, yet packed with children who seemed to have got a deal with a hair dresser. Buy one get 10 free. I really couldn’t tell one from the other, a boy from a girl.
Perched precariously and trying to steal some air from the gentleman’s newspaper, I sat down waiting for the coach who should have been already there. It was a long wait. Till then, stomp, stomp, stomp, 45 kids and two trainers ran around and round, making a mockery of my time.
The coach when he finally turned up was straight out of Dangal himself, beefy and rustic but with no sense of urgency in his steps. “I will be there in a minute”, he said before vanishing even faster. The next 15 ticking minutes, which seemed like an entire afternoon in that suffocating hall, he spent folding his clothes so neatly and diligently that one could be forgiven for thinking he had paid money at a laundromat instead of coming to coach enthusiastic children.
Finally, he took a minute, looked at his hands, gazed at the lonely pigeon on a beam and announced grandly, “haan khel saktee hai, bhej do teen baje.” Clearly, this was not the big talent hunt I had mistakenly imagined, but we took what we got.
10,000 Steps, Here I Come
So, the adventure began. I wore my sneakers, put on my fit bit which until now I was using only to see the time and ran. Ran from the bus stop to training and then just for the sake of it, because mothers are like headless chicken and let them not con you otherwise with a profound explanation of how this is their meaning in life.
Friends around me are going to the Everest Base camp, I thought at least 10,000 steps daily will be my summit. They were not. Some evenings when the husband and kids were not looking, I began to run on the spot wondering how tough could it be. I am not even ‘almost there’.
But you win some and you struggle to win some. “Mama, the coach is calling you.” Again. “Aaj isne paanch banana nahi khaye”, the erstwhile laundryman bellowed. “Sir, uska size dekh kar teen bhi bahut hain!” His attention span hasn’t increased in the weeks since we joined, he grunts and moves on as though I just failed again. In my 40s, and I was still on the bench!
Some days are even more challenging but they give you a whole new respect for our athletes who make it to the podium despite the lamest of odds. “Aaj training nahi hai, local elections hain toh ballot box idhar hee rakhna padega” and slowly that one day becomes three months because renovations and local events will finish when they finish. “Aaj stadium mein ek show hai aap zaroor ayega”, how do you facepalm the famous U.P. tehzeeb?
I am not a tiger mom, but I do what has to be done. Sometimes the 6ams are a bit shaky, “mama why are you driving so weirdly”, the older girl calmly asks from the back seat as I drop her to school for an early morning training session. She isn’t the one who refuses to learn the lesson, that partying mid-week is now a recipe for disaster, that sometimes even a glass of wine over the weekend is hard. But again, we all do what we have to do!
My girls may develop the drive to excel or realise in time they don’t want it but for all of us, the fun is in the ride. Hopefully while playing in the mud they don’t bother too much with smelling the earth, that will come soon enough. For now, it’s enough to roll around, get dirty and go with the flow. As for me, I’ll take nirvana or the 10k steps, whatever comes first.
(Jyotsna Mohan writes extensively for most major publications in both India and Pakistan. She is a former senior news anchor and senior news editor with NDTV)
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