Her First Steps Out Of The Safe Place Called Home

As a mom, and I know most moms would relate to this, it is a bit unnerving to let your child explore the world on his/her own. Remember the first time they stepped out of their cushy home to find their own independent ground in the real world out there? Peaches started school last year. Initially, I had trouble letting her go but she was so sure of herself and thrilled about everything related to school. About talking to teachers, making new friends and introducing Sofia, her doll, to her new world. (Yea, that's all that was tucked inside her lil bag on the first day). She was giddy with excitement and it rubbed on to me too.

But then, somewhere deep down, I couldn't help but recall my first day in a new school as a fifth-grader.

I was in a new country, in an all-girls convent (with a small boy population). I wasn't quite looking forward to my first day of school; only natural that I should miss my old friends and life back in Pune. But then new school supplies and crisp uniforms have a way of elevating your spirits with that brand new, shiny hopefulness, right?

I thought of how I'd present myself to the class. I also coached myself to talk to everybody and put myself out there, which is always an uphill task for me. The school campus was magnificent and the quaint, red-brick buildings sorta cheered me. The first day, like all first days, reeked of trepidation so when the teacher was escorting me to the classroom, I was trying my best to keep myself at ease by chanting to myself that I'll make it through the day just fine. But I also had a sinking feeling inside, one that told me to run back home. I could come back with another kid from the school, who could maybe introduce me to everyone as a 'potential cool kid' from beyond the borders. I entered the classroom with a weak smile. There were some sixty-odd, alien faces staring back at me, sizing me up and weighing me down. Among them, I spotted a boy from my own land and I was instantly determined to go sit next to him. The teacher gave me a hearty welcome and asked me to introduce myself. I cleared my throat and I had barely spoken one sentence when I was greeted by a roar of laughter and strange voices that echoed my supposedly "sing-song" accent. Amidst the noise of their jeers and hoots, the teacher struggled to understand my name and I struggled to make sense of their strange culture.

The more I fumbled, the more they laughed. And that was just the first class. I had to make it through the whole day without falling apart so I decided to make friends with the boy instead. I mean surely, he knew what it was like to be the odd one out. Yea, that was my strategy. To focus my attention on someone seemingly more miserable than me. I mean he was a boy in a girls' school. An Indian in an Ugandan school. Life wasn't fair to him. I sort of pitied him. I went and sat next to him and initiated a conversation. But to my surprise, he didn't seem all that interested in talking to me. I thought that was weird. Why wouldn't he want to make friends with his own kind? But pretty soon, it became clear to me exactly why. I was far from being his kind. I was a girl and he a boy. The girls from my class cat-called their lungs out every time we spoke. They brewed up a pretty sleazy love saga, thanks to the vast imagination supplied by all the Sweet Valley Highs they were devouring already.

That's the earliest, most vivid memory that I have of being bulled. I remember dreading school every night when I went to bed only to come up with a creative excuse to not go to school the next day. Thankfully, it was only a rite of passage and it all died down as time passed and I had my own group of friends to look forward to each day. I have a strange suspicion that my mum's homemade laddoos had something to do with their change of hearts.

Haven't we all been bullied in school one way or another? I could say, for me, the most traumatic bullying experiences were when I was deliberately frozen out from a group of friends or nagged by my besties. I think those are the most heart-wrenching ones.

But why am I discussing this now? Surely, Saanvi is too young to encounter bullies yet. And that's what I thought. She loves school and she's made a lot of friends, some of whom she's even gone ahead and elevated to the bestie status. (Well, one of the girls is her bestie cos her name's also Saanvi and it's as simple as that.) Sure, once in a while, she has these wobbly moments when she tells me about a kid who teased her or pushed her or was being mean to her. But that's the best part of childhood, ain't it? It's that blissful temporal state when nothing matters after ten minutes. Her memory is fleeting right now. The next day she'll wake up with the same undeterred energy and devotion to school.

But a funny thing happened the other day. You see Saanvi loves her play-time just as much as school. I mean if you were to plot her excitement levels on a graph, it would peak at school and play-time. (And trough at meal hours and shower time.) So I am sipping on my cup of chai and as usual, begging her to give me five minutes to take obnoxiously loud sips at leisure when she tells me that she doesn't want to go to the playground after all. I did a double take but I was also dead sure it would be followed up by something sassy like, "Aapko jitna chai peena hai aaram se peeyo." [Yea, drink all the tea you want at leisure.] But she looked at me gravely and she told me she doesn't want to go to the playground ever. I tried to persuade her to go but she started crying hysterically. So we played indoors that day. And the next.

And I knew exactly what had happened.

One of her friends in the playground with whom she got along fairly well had recently begun throwing his weight around. You know the type. They're always jumpy and they want what they want right then. So, he saw Saanvi sitting on what he claimed was his swing and pushed her off it instead of asking her to give him a go. And for the next two days, Saanvi kinda became his personal issue. He pushed and shoved her any chance that he got...for absolutely no reason. I tried intervening and telling him that I'll take the matter to his parents. But he just gave me a weird hollow laugh, which, for his age, was disturbing. It was terrifying to see him around other kids. He was always pushing his way past others and one time, he almost led to a fatal accident on the slide.

What did Saanvi feel? She was hurt. Not physically. (Thank God.) But emotionally yes. Hurt and confused.

She asked me why he was pushing her away. She was repeatedly saying it wasn't her fault. She eventually said the words that would break every mom's heart. "I don't want to play. I don't have any friends."

I tried a series of uptempo tropes to alleviate her fear. I told her there are other kids that she can play with. She can ride her cycle instead. But nothing seemed to work. And since I happen to be a giant marshmallow when it comes to 'my peachy pie', I had to bring Sumit in, who's somewhat of a pro in counselling people. I could see her fear dissipate when she was talking to Sumit. He held her in his arms and he told her, "Next time he tries to push you, look at him in the eye and tell him, "Don't do it!" And he won't. I thought to myself, "Well, bullies don't work like that but sure we'll give it a shot." The next day she went to the playground with me. She sat on the swing while I watched from a distance. He came back. He asked her to get off the swing. I hurried towards her just in time to hear her say, authoritatively, "Abhi meri turn hai na. Aur mujhe push mat karna!" (It's my turn. And don't you push me!) And that day, he decided to let her through.

I don't know how she got here so soon. It's such a helpless feeling when you have to see your child deal with the cruelty of other kids, to have to grow up and experience fear and anxiety. As a parent, my first reaction was to take the boy by his arms, march him back to his house and tell his parents about what a mean lil monster they were raising. To tell them that my daughter sat at home for two days in fear for no fault of hers when it was their kid who really deserved to be grounded.

But then I didn't do any of those things. It wasn't because I empathized with that kid. And it wasn't because I empathized with his parents who'd probably tell me that they do the best that they can. That he's just bursting with a lot of energy that fails to get channelized in the right direction. Or because he's dealing with some crisis of his own.

But because I want Saanvi to know that life is not all happy jingles, teddy bears and rainbows.

That life can be a b****sometimes. That there will be kids who will be cruel to you for no fault of yours. That you could be equally targeted for standing out and for being invisible.  And I want her to know how to survive through that. She might probably one day encounter something like this in a classroom, at the football field or backstage right before she sets foot onto her first-ever big theatrical performance. Of course, I hope that never happens but what if it does? I don't want her to turn her head to look for her mum and dad in utter confusion and think, "What should I do?" I want her to stay there and make it past that hardship.

I want her to believe that she's right and not even for a minute, get swayed into thinking that she brought it on to herself.

I also want her to know that she can always come home and pour her heart out to her family and that she'll get unconditional hugs and kisses and all our love. That when she walks in to home everyday, it's her safe place and nothing can ever go wrong to her here. And I want her to know that when she can't handle it on her own, she has to be able to tell us and we will be there to protect her and we will do everything that we can as parents to release her from the evil spell of being tormented.

I wonder though if it would be as important to teach her how to cope with bullies if we could teach bullies not to bully. What if in this incident, Saanvi were the bully? Would I still be writing about this? Would I be able to stop her? Unfortunately, I don't have the answers to these questions. I cannot relate with the bully. All I can say is I will not have my daughter bully anyone. I don't care if it's deemed as a rite of passage or a chain of junior-senior bonding or a mock-drill aimed at personality development. I'd much rather have her get bullied than bully anyone. Cos there is no damn excuse that justifies deliberately inflicting pain to another being.

But for now, all I want her to know is that she can count on us. And it doesn't matter how nasty things get in the world beyond us, home is her safe place. Always.