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In our households during our times daughters used to learn a lot from their mothers. This was more by watching and imitating rather than formal coaching. Girls used to participate in household chores like cooking, cleaning, sewing, knitting, grinding, praying, minding infants, and taming husbands.
But not formal studies except puja paths, rituals, superstitions, songs, and telling tall tales.
Generation after generation, daughters used to get more qualified in schools than their moms and so they didn't go to their moms for their homework in subjects like maths and English and cheating. For these they had to depend on their fathers.
This was not always true of sons and fathers. Celebrity fathers in general had little-known sons alright. There is a saying that goes:
"pandita putra: shuntha:"
which means:
"The son of a pundit is a moron"
As they grew up, daughters of our times too used to revolt against their moms in matters of heart and selection of husbands. As a rule, more girls rejected prospective suitors in their interviews than the other way round. My mom did it, her mom did it, my wife did it, and my daughter-in-law did it...
An unusual teacher-student relation in modern history is between Nehruji and Indiraji. Indiraji learned her lessons in history from her father, not her mother. And in regular letters that her dad used to write to her from his sundry prisons. These are compiled in wonderful books like 'Discovery of India' and 'Glimpses of World History' both of which are eminently readable.
But of course Indiraji never heeded her parents in the matter of her marriage and its aftermath. She followed her own heart and then head.
But she could have taught her father a lesson or two in realpolitik like how to throw an entire opposition in jails.
Nehruji lost his war but never an election, and died a natural death. Indiraji won her war but lost an election, and her life brutally.
Daughters-in-law too can learn from their fathers-in-law if they wish to and if both happen to live under the same roof as me and Sailaja.
And vice versa.
Sailaja often declares in public rather proudly that all the driving she learned was from her father-in-law. The old man is much more patient than her young husband or her driving instructor.
Maybe there is some truth in it.
When she first attempted to learn driving our matchbox Maruti, she naturally went to her new husband. And soon found that it was affecting their marital relations...there were quarrels right from the clutch and gears. And rebukes from one side and rebuttals from the other:
"You are no good!"
"You are the worst teacher I ever saw!"
And then, in one of her spells in her Nellore home town, she joined a Driving School and eventually got her learning (and then learned) licenses, for a consideration.
And then started driving in Hyderabad with me in the front seat by her side.
And discovered that I was getting heart attacks in the lanes and bylanes of our locality.
And I discovered that she learned pretty little from her Nellore driving instructor.
She knew how to go ahead but not to reverse...rather like Abhimayu. Nor how to park and retrieve. Nor that there is a thing called side-mirror. Nor parking brake which I told her is 'God's gift to drivers'. Nor flashing lights asking for way. Nor any rules of right of the way. Nor to change gears on bumps and gradients. Nor the innards of engines like brake fluid and coolants whose existence was a discovery for her. Nor how to get gas filled in a petrol pump. Nor how to change tires (even I can't do it nowadays). Nor the existence of a toolkit in the boot. And so on and so forth...
Nowadays however she wants to teach me how to drive fast, faster, and faster...faster than light...
Sigh!
...Posted by Ishani
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In our households during our times daughters used to learn a lot from their mothers. This was more by watching and imitating rather than formal coaching. Girls used to participate in household chores like cooking, cleaning, sewing, knitting, grinding, praying, minding infants, and taming husbands.
But not formal studies except puja paths, rituals, superstitions, songs, and telling tall tales.
Generation after generation, daughters used to get more qualified in schools than their moms and so they didn't go to their moms for their homework in subjects like maths and English and cheating. For these they had to depend on their fathers.
This was not always true of sons and fathers. Celebrity fathers in general had little-known sons alright. There is a saying that goes:
"pandita putra: shuntha:"
which means:
"The son of a pundit is a moron"
As they grew up, daughters of our times too used to revolt against their moms in matters of heart and selection of husbands. As a rule, more girls rejected prospective suitors in their interviews than the other way round. My mom did it, her mom did it, my wife did it, and my daughter-in-law did it...
An unusual teacher-student relation in modern history is between Nehruji and Indiraji. Indiraji learned her lessons in history from her father, not her mother. And in regular letters that her dad used to write to her from his sundry prisons. These are compiled in wonderful books like 'Discovery of India' and 'Glimpses of World History' both of which are eminently readable.
But of course Indiraji never heeded her parents in the matter of her marriage and its aftermath. She followed her own heart and then head.
But she could have taught her father a lesson or two in realpolitik like how to throw an entire opposition in jails.
Nehruji lost his war but never an election, and died a natural death. Indiraji won her war but lost an election, and her life brutally.
Daughters-in-law too can learn from their fathers-in-law if they wish to and if both happen to live under the same roof as me and Sailaja.
And vice versa.
Sailaja often declares in public rather proudly that all the driving she learned was from her father-in-law. The old man is much more patient than her young husband or her driving instructor.
Maybe there is some truth in it.
When she first attempted to learn driving our matchbox Maruti, she naturally went to her new husband. And soon found that it was affecting their marital relations...there were quarrels right from the clutch and gears. And rebukes from one side and rebuttals from the other:
"You are no good!"
"You are the worst teacher I ever saw!"
And then, in one of her spells in her Nellore home town, she joined a Driving School and eventually got her learning (and then learned) licenses, for a consideration.
And then started driving in Hyderabad with me in the front seat by her side.
And discovered that I was getting heart attacks in the lanes and bylanes of our locality.
And I discovered that she learned pretty little from her Nellore driving instructor.
She knew how to go ahead but not to reverse...rather like Abhimayu. Nor how to park and retrieve. Nor that there is a thing called side-mirror. Nor parking brake which I told her is 'God's gift to drivers'. Nor flashing lights asking for way. Nor any rules of right of the way. Nor to change gears on bumps and gradients. Nor the innards of engines like brake fluid and coolants whose existence was a discovery for her. Nor how to get gas filled in a petrol pump. Nor how to change tires (even I can't do it nowadays). Nor the existence of a toolkit in the boot. And so on and so forth...
Nowadays however she wants to teach me how to drive fast, faster, and faster...faster than light...
Sigh!
...Posted by Ishani
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