According to me, there could be three reasons for not being able to ground your child ever:
1. Your child is too good a child to be grounded. He is obedient. He is independent and doesn’t suck your blood. He is good at all the things you want him to be (yes it’s always about what you want. Isn’t it?). Last but not the least, he is an all-rounder. “Meri aankhon ka taara. Mera sab se pyara” waala child.
2. He is your only child and no matter how spoilt he is, he remains the family’s “Nona bachaa” . Nona is a very common term used in Punjabi families for their children. It’s an expression of love no matter how grown up the child is. Even if he reaches sixty! It is used mostly for boys, men, old men, etc. It rhymes if your name is Mona. The family will ask you,
“Mona kahan chupa rakha hae tumne humara ‘nona’!”
Anyways, You will not feel like grounding your Nona bacha because he is, “ hai mera Nona bachaa… next time nahin karega badmashi.” Well, who has seen that next time.
3. Your child is beyond you. He is way too smart. No matter how much you try you will not be able to ground him. In simple words, he will not take the punishment..”nahin leta jao. Kya kar loge.” Now that’s one question you won’t be able to answer. Actually, hum kya kar lenge? Woh ground nahin ho raha to nahin ho raha!! Might as well, we get grounded. A perfect example of this is our son and us.
Keeping the third point in mind, you can understand my plight people. I am a parent who has NEVER EVER grounded her child. Actually, I couldn’t do it. He was too smart to get away. I mean, God Ji has been very unfair to me by depriving me of this basic opportunity, the ultimate pleasure of shouting out, “you are groooounded son!!!” Because whenever I tried, he rolled his eyes and went to his room while I stood there feeling like an absolute moron.
Finally, after about nineteen long years, God Ji heard my prayers. Mere woh eleven nariyals akhir paid off and I could do what I had been dying to do all these years. Yes, the strange part is that son took it. Of course, the reason we got to understand only later.
Sunday happened a massive commotion between son, me and miyan. He wanted to do something which we didn’t want him to get into and boom! There we all went. I saw it as my perfect opportunity of shouting out, “aaryan you are grounded! You will not move out of your room for the next two days and your phone and TV remotes will be taken away too!” By god, words are not enough to describe my satisfaction. It was the ultimate feeling! I was super elated!
Son stood there for a while, gave it a thought, and then said, “ok! Ground karna hae to mere drums studio mein Karo. At least I’ll have something to do there.”
“Fair enough. Point taken.” We said.
Son went to his studio and we went for our afternoon siesta. Siesta word sounds so fancy especially after your nineteen-year-old desire has been fulfilled!
Suddenly, there was an ugly, nonmusical, non-melodious, and non-stop playing of drums. We got up with a jolt, “what the hell! What is he doing!” We screamed, went up banged his door too but to no avail.
Hum samajh gaye, “Dude is deliberately doing it to get back to us!”
There was no option left but to bear it for the next two hours because there was no phone we could have contacted him on. We had confiscated his phone.
Aur is tarah angrezi culture ke bojh ki maari maa ne apna pair kulhari pe de maara!!! The whole afternoon went sulking and blaming each other. Miyan was furious, “pad gayee tumhe thandak!” Neither could we step out because it was very hot and sultry. Nor could we relax.
Somali Bammi
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