FOXTROT AND THE LAW

Till the age of about twelve, a child, whether son or daughter, is supposed to be trained, equipped and monitored mainly by the mother. Of course, father’s input as a protector and provider remains primary. Brush your teeth first thing in the morning, no sweets before meals, it’s eight o’clock and now go to be bed, brush your teeth before you sleep, no no you can’t go to bed with dirty feet, wash yourself and have you done your home-work and books ready for tomorrow? – are some of the commandments the child lives by, if he or she has a discipline-plus-love oriented mother. Home by six o’clock (well at least in my day) or we are coming to pick you up, we will be parked on the road, no you cannot go to a house without their parents being there today – are some of the commands a father issues. In our day, well, we were wise enough to understand that restriction meant love and not control. Being a simple housewife, my expectations of a healthy society is one that has law and order. These days, looking forward to law and order when I’m out and about, makes me feel ancient and archaic as that seems to be the very thing that’s missing from our society. Let me be fair. There could be certain pockets in our wider society that do live within the law and in an orderly fashion. Just today, driving on my-side of the road, my car narrowly missed kissing a scooter-borneyouth, who was simply meandering on my-side on the road, going in opposite direction. Now, can you picture that? Then again, being an avid reader of the most popular English daily, I was thrilled to know that no one below the age of thirty-five could drive a tuk-tuk! Wow, applauded my rulers and congratulated them verbosely to my dearly beloved and said that contrary to popular thinking, we are getting there. That is to law and order. Just two days ago, the same popular English daily reported that an even higher authority has overturned that rule! I couldn’t believe my eyes! Very quietly, in his baritone voice, my dearly beloved reminded me that same fate be fell the Tuk Metre Rule and Issue Bus Tickets Rule. I'm not quite sure about the No Polythene Rule, whether it is on or off. Can you blame me? Of course not, given the amount of rules that come and go and laws are enforced and deposed, who can keep count of what’s actually coming and going?

So then, what’s the connection between the societal laws and those of mothers and fathers? At least, the domestic-law remains the law, as long as neither undermines the other’s authority, surreptitiously to gain a high favour from their brood. Either way, that’s not going to raise a good child, now - will it? Not just the law and order in the home but the discipline of the child and his or her future view of life will be adversely impacted, significantly, if it was the case. Unfortunately, it seems to be seeping into the family foundations, where fathers and mothers compete with each other for affection rather than complement each other, in bringing up their progeny. Sad indeed! Societal issues seem to go way beyond our home affairs. Laws come and laws go. Simple Pereras like myself do get confused as to whether the law is alive or deeply buried in some archival sepulchre! Why have we become a back and forth society, I wondered while cooking my simple lunch. Lighting the stove that now sucks skyrocketing-gas with exorbitantly priced fish in a two hundred and fifty rupee clay chatty, I could not find an answer. Come twentieth of each month, I dread to think of the competition between my wallet and the petrol tank! Will it be backwards or will it be forwards? My friend Sathy and her hubby are excellent dancers. I was reminded of the one-step-forward-two-steps-backward foxtrot they so painstakingly taught me. Well, you don’t need a house-full of two-twenty-five to teach us dancing, now, do we? I do have a solution. Let the two-twenty-five in the Rule Making body be all mothers. Why not, if mothers can rule their progeny with tough domestic-laws and ensure complicity, why not ask them to run the country? At least the laws will be there for good. In the alternative, our society is learning the Foxtrot sans good music.