Dear children, I know that you are not in the habit of receiving letters from us adults …either because we don’t have the time or because we don’t think it important enough to write letters to kids whom we ‘own’ anyway; or both. Of course, we have the time and the inclination to write letters of much greater importance, to, say, the manager of the electric supply company if we think our bills are too high. That sort of thing is high on our priority list; you guys are, after all, ours, and will always be there for us.

The trouble is, we don’t realize that you won’t always be there for us, not if some of us continue to treat you like table-tennis balls, to be smashed around and top-spun out of your sanity; and sometimes, out of life itself.

This is a ‘sorry letter’, in grown-up language, an unconditional apology. It is not only on behalf of Dipak Bhattacharya, the baba who lost his 14-year-old son because he thought winning a table-tennis game was more important than life itself; it is on behalf of all of us parents who want you to be what we want you to be, probably because some of our parents made us what they wanted us to be. In our hearts we may have resented it, even wanted to rebel against it, but didn’t; because of which some of us today are dissatisfied engineers, bored doctors, lethargic lawyers or stereotyped cricketers, doing what we do well, but not really enjoying what we do. Sure, they are all noble professions — good ones too — but only if they are what you want to do and what you are able to do.

The problem with us parents is that we want you to be one of two things: either our clones, or what we wanted to be, and couldn’t. I was really fortunate. My grandfather and both my parents were teachers, but not once did they even suggest that I should become one; my grandfather and father both wielded a mighty pen, but not once did they hand me one and say, “you must become a writer”; my father was the country’s first quizmaster, but not once did he put pressure on me to do it professionally; both my parents were active social workers, but not once did they force me to join them in their work. That I ended up doing all of the above without once feeling pressurized to do so, is credit to them.

I know some of you must be saying, “What sort of parents and grandparents were they, not telling you in which direction you should be going?” Ah, there’s the catch! That’s exactly, what they were doing — only their methods were different. For them, wickets were sticks used only in cricket matches, dark rooms were only used to sleep in and mental torture was only something the enemy inflicted on you. Those days they were called normal parents — today they would have been called sensible parents, balanced parents, parents out-of-the-ordinary.

They surrounded me with love, books, warmth and above all, a sense of security. Wow! Didn’t they ever correct you, I can hear you asking. Of course they did, as often as they needed to. Their questions were justifiable enquiries, not detective probes; their advice came via constructive suggestions, not ‘do-it-or-else’ threats; they resembled gentle, yet firm, teachers, not terrorists in disguise.

Did they have their own dreams for their children? You bet they did. My mother made it a point to declare to anyone remotely close to the family what she wanted her three sons to be: one should join the armed forces to save the country; one should become a priest, to save the soul; and one a doctor, to save the body. Every time she said it, she made sure that the three of us were within hearing distance. It wasn’t just a dream; she made it her mission and spent countless hours on her prayer-bones in our local parish. What she didn’t do was make my father a co-conspirator, force her plans down our throats, and make us live her dream.

Today, when she looks around and sees that, professionally, none of her sons came remotely close to fulfilling her dream, I am sure she is not disheartened, or, worse still, completely shattered. She seems very happy that as parents, they allowed us to be ourselves. That’s what made us happy; and what made us happy, made them happy.

My young friends, you will be pleased to know that there were, are and always will be many parents like mine. But the sad truth is that there are so many parents these days who have chosen the wrong four-letter word to be the centre-point of their relationship with their children: fear.

If your mum and dad belong to this deadly category of parents, you do have a problem. But remember, every problem has a solution: communicate with the parent who is less demanding, less aggressive, and certainly less physical. Usually, this parent is too submissive, preoccupied or, to put it simply, too frightened, just like you. If this parent does not show signs of helping you, it’s time to identify a strong and understanding relative or friend who has a good relationship with the demanding parent. Open up with this adult, make him or her your chief communicator, listener, even adviser. After all, there’s nothing wrong in looking for a guardian angel outside your immediate family, especially if no one in it has the qualities or the desire to become one.

Whatever you do, little champs, don’t become too depressed to talk or too negative to listen; because if that happens, you could end up doing something that is the worst thing any human being could do. The sad truth is that so many of you are doing it: I don’t know whether your parents know this, but there are more suicide deaths among young people in West Bengal, and I am sure other states too, than there are malaria deaths.

Many of us parents fool ourselves by saying that such things will never happen in our family, these are extreme cases, and so on. It is about time that we realize that while we may not be going to the extent of giving you electric shocks or tying you to a lamppost if you lost a match, many of us exert undue pressure on you without even realizing it. We give you complexes and phobias right from the time we start comparing you with other children — who took his first step earlier; who knew how many words before her second birthday; and then the big one, who got into the ‘best’ school and who didn’t.

Sometimes, one child in a family gets into the ‘best’ school and the other doesn’t. Without realizing it, the parents go from Dhoom I to Gloom II. Their disappointment, anxiety and depression rubs off on Baby No. 2, who begins to feel like a second-class citizen. As the years roll on, the ‘my-beta-will-bat-like-Sachin-and-my-beti-will-play-like-Sania’ syndrome takes over. For parents who have dreams of an indoor nature, it’s the ‘my-child-is-an-Einstein’ syndrome that fills their empty minds. It’s about time we, as parents, realized that our children are all little champs, as precious as Sachin, Sania or Einstein were to their parents. It’s about time we realized that our children are all special, and specially good at something; and that ‘something’ isn’t always what we want them to be good at; but it’s that ‘something’, and that ‘something’ only, that will keep them happy and contented throughout their lives.

Sorry guys for the long letter, but even more sorry for trying to make robots out of you. Sorry for making even art classes and sports coaching, mechanical and forced. Sorry, in advance, for forcing you to appear for the Joint Entrance examination even though you don’t want to be a doctor or an engineer. Sorry for wanting to make you what your father and grandfather were, even if you don’t like the idea one bit. Sorry for wanting you to do what we wanted to, but couldn’t. Sorry for making you live our dream, not yours. Sorry for wanting you to live your life, as if it were ours.

We now realize that though we gave you life, we have no right to take it away from you.

Please love us; don’t fear us.

With you always,

Your loving parents.

P.S. If your parents haven’t yet read this letter, please do me the favour of strategically leaving this newspaper, conveniently opened to this page, lying next to where they are likely to see it, because — I need to be honest with you — though the letter is addressed to you, it is a message specially for them. Take care.