Mama,You Shrunk My Holiday

It was the summer holidays but they were sitting in a posh,carpeted and air-conditioned classroom with a blackboard,desks,paper,pencils and a lady lecturing them,waving a piece of chalk,and scribbling assignments on the board. Only the teacher was not really a teacher,nor was she a writer as she had never been published,and so had rather dodgy qualifications for running the workshop. Then it dawned on me that I had been invited because I had published some books. I had to hang around mumbling inanities to make it officially creative as parents had paid a hefty sum for a course that would transform their children into writers in three short lessons.

Every year,in May and June,all across town,there are many such workshops taking place pottery,painting,music,theatre,dancing,tennis and public speaking,and the most expensive of all,summer camps. The morning newspapers shed a small pile of fliers offering planned activities that are good for children on their summer holiday a cable TV service is offering a summer camp of video games; a drama workshop is advertising for franchises; and a sangeet mahavidyalaya has triumphantly listed students who have made it to reality shows. Clearly,it is a very profitable business. But many of us wonder have todays children lost all the lazy fun and joy of discovery of summer holidays?

As a child,my most favourite day,ever,was the 15th of May the last day before the summer vacations began. I would stand at the morning assembly,ecstatically singing a hymn with my mind afloat with happiness. Two blissful months stretched before me when there were no maths tests,no sweaty PE classes and,oh joy,no Hindi lessons. Instead,I was legally allowed to be lazy and hang about without a single purpose in life. My memories are of slow,sleepy days of happy discoveries; of books,music,movies,visiting cousins,garden cricket and board games. No one was going to structure my day and as long as I remembered to brush my teeth,I was left alone. Our generation had grandfathers who had all the time in the world to listen to you and grandmothers who remembered to cook your favourite dishes. And your gang of siblings,cousins and friends were permitted to ruin the flower beds,wrestle with the sofa and jive to loud music. Also,at times,break window panes while playing dark room and regularly empty the biscuit tin. It was break out time and no one expected us to learn anything at all.

So dont the kids today want a summer vacation like that? Are parents filling their free time with too much activity? How have holidays changed? A talk with my friends under the age of 17 brought responses that were thoughtful and surprisingly nuanced.

Thirteen-year-old Pragya pointed out gently that they no longer have cousins coming over for the vacations; they spend their time with friends from school and their locality. Grandparents are not very evident in the holiday mix anymore. Many children meet grandparents only occasionally for short periods of time,weddings and stuff. So there may be a lot of affection but there is much less of bonding. Her 16-year-old brother Dhruv used that crucial phrase,hang around with friends,at least half a dozen times during a 10-minute conversation. And that could be anything football in the park,a round of video games or a movie. One thing has not changed: they need their space where adults are not constantly looking over their shoulders. A great holiday was most of all about friends.

I would have had a panic attack at the prospect of joining any kind of classes during the holidays. What else was I doing all year round except attend classes? Not so with todays children. According to 14-year-old Mahashweta,a summer camp can be an amazing experience if they are made amazing and then told me of how a hobby camp bored her to tears but how she had a blast at an art camp at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi.

Harried mothers,please note,most of them could clearly differentiate between activities that they gained from and what was mostly time pass,chosen to get them out of the house. As 13-year-old Ishani said in disgust,Why waste nine hundred bucks on learning to skate when you can do it in the park? But it seems all the mothers in her locality were busy sending their children to skating,painting and modern dancing lessons. Useless! One child remembered with disgust how he had to jump and chirp for,like,ever at a drama workshop while playing a monkey in Ramas army.

A summer camp in the hills? Opinion was divided. It meant being away from the family for 10-12 days,and involved trekking and living in tents. It was not for every child. Some of them hated the regimentation,the early morning wake-up calls were mentioned with loathing and they were clearly homesick. Others revelled at the challenges and would do it again. It was an oddly love-it-or-hate-it response. Ipshita nailed it by telling me that it was fun only if you went with friends but very tough if you were alone or you hated walking.

When we were young,adults gave us time and holidays were about people. Also,it was less about structured activities and more about spending time with family and friends. You did not have fathers on the mobile phone at the dining table or mothers hammering away at their laptops when you wanted to tell them anything. For all their talk about friends,a little probing showed that these children spent a huge amount of time watching television and movies,surfing the internet and Facebook,and playing video games. Some even confessed that they often preferred chatting online to meeting their friends.

Parental antennas should go up if your child is spending too much time on any one activity. Then,instead of a workshop,some time spent as a family may be the best answer. And be creative. Not just movies and pizzas but a walk at Qutub Minar,looking for second hand books at Daryaganj,cricket in the park,painting the flower pots. Let them loose in bookshops and libraries. And history-phobic parents may not believe me,but children absolutely adore museums,they are full of weapons and masks,dinosaurs and skeletons.

Summer holidays,Ishani points out in a matter-of-fact way,are under threat anyway,Our holidays are much shorter and there are tons of holiday homework… so who has the time? This is a very different generation. They are smarter and better informed and less obedient and more demanding. But they are still children,who could use some freedom to take life at their own pace. Shouldnt they get more time?

(Sen Gupta is the author of several books for children)