Parent Child Relations The Recogntion and Nurturing of Talent-A Mini Case

World has become very competitive now and we have all read about Maslow’s need hierarchy. This changing environment brings in new demands on the child which the parent needs to recognize and respond. In the absence of such recognition the quality of relationship can suffer, the talent may never blossom, the child may lead unhappy life or the child may become defiant and take independent action leading to a latent hostility towards the parent. In my earlier post, I had written about the need for tolerance and giving the child time to adjust to school environment. In this blog I am writing about an experience I had with one my very dear friends whose real name I cannot reveal and therefore will use a different name.

Chandu and beginning of his acting career –Ramayana reversed.

Chandu and I went to the school together. I enjoyed being with Chandu because he had a natural talent to make people laugh all the time. He narrated stories that were funny and most of us when we are young love to hear stories that are funny. Generally, we are better at laughing when we are young but as we get older our ability to laugh seems to wane away.

Chandu loved acting, but Chandu’s family, particularly his father never liked Chandu’s taking part in dramas as he felt that Chandu will be better of with a steady job and a monthly salary than acting that he thought has no social status. Besides, he thought that it is risky to pursue acting as one may fail and live without any work. Like most parents his father too wanted him to get a senior administrative position in Government, become a doctor or study engineering. But Chandu’s grades were not helping as he did not remember things well and he was also not keen on studies.

Here is an event that goes on the lighter side which was the beginning of Chandu, the actor. The town had planned for some drama competitions for kids and Chandu managed to convince his father and get in to a team that wanted to play Ramayana a sacred mythological story in India. The team chose this play because it was very respected story of high image and will be valued high by the judges as a theme for the Prize.

In brief, Ramayana is about Rama the eldest son of King Dasarath, going to forests on the request of his father as one of the King’s wives wanted her son to be the next one to get to throne. The king had no choice as he had granted a wish to this wife, in return for something she did for him and the wife wanted to ask for the wish to be granted at an appropriate time.

So lord Rama went to live in the forest along with his wife Sita and younger brother Lakshmana accompanying him. In the forest, he was confronted by a demon Ravana who tries to kidnap Sita, keep her in his kingdom and persuade her to marry him. To set Sita free and bring her back, Rama fights a war with the demon and frees Sita.

Chandu’s play director decided that he will have three scenes in the given time- the first where Ravana comes to kidnap Sita, the second the fight by Lakshmana with Ravana’s battalion of demons to induce some tension, and the third, a climax scene where there will be direct confrontation between Rama the hero and Ravana the villain, Ravana will be killed by Rama and Sita will garland Rama to show her appreciation for her husband Rama’s love for her and his valor

Who will play the role of Sita? As the girls would not act those days and the parents generally did not let them act on public stages in the towns it was necessary for a boy to act as a girl and Chandu was chosen for this role as he was good looking and young.

In the first scene as the curtains went up the hefty looking boy Ravana comes to the place when only Sita was around in the excuse of asking for some food . Sita (Chandu) was to deliver some dialogues, but Chandu looked at the audience and froze. He completely forgot the lines and prompting was not helping

He was confused and he looked uncomfortable in the saree which would have been difficult even for a girl of that age to wear. In the process one of his artificially stuffed breasts (which the make up man may have over done) slipped out of position. So Ravana got distracted and started signaling in a subtle way asking Chandu to correct it. The audience too started laughing and the curtains went down.

In scene two Lakshmana was busy fighting Ravana and his team Lakshmana gets unconscious after a fierce fight and killing one of the members of Ravana’s team. Of the two Lakshmana was supposed to get up again after regaining consciousness and the other dead man was to be carried out by soldiers (to create space on the stage). Unfortunately the other soldiers did not know who is who, carried Lakshmana and left the dead man behind- a confusion again and curtains down.

The climax scene , the fight between Rama and Ravana was on and one of the weapons which has a big head and a long handle was in use. The hefty Ravana misfired and hit the lean lanky handsome actor who was in Rama’s role and Rama fell on the floor. Sita (Chandu) was confused and waited for a few seconds. The stage director did not realize the turn of events and started signaling to Chandu to go ahead and garland so Sita garlanded Ravana.

Ramayana got reversed, Sita married Ravana and the acting career of Chandu was burried.

Chandu’s problems

From that time Chandu’s father put a total ban on his acting for a couple of years and Chandu also was depressed as people would remind him of this fiasco very often. I insisted that Chandu should act as I was worried that he may never act again, and without acting he would be miserable. This went on for a few more years and finally one fine night Chandu took off to the City of Movie industry in south India without informing anyone, even me.

No one knew where he got the money for travel but he must have been planning for sometime and worked here and there to save money. I had a hunch that something was going wrong as Chandu’s grades were getting very bad and I had to rescue him often. He was barely passing till he took off, when he finally failed a subject or two. If Chandu continued in the school we would not have been in the same class any more; that would be painful for me because Chandu was a very kind at heart and affectionate boy.

Emergence of Chandu the actor

As years went Chandu worked very hard, pleased the directors and has become very famous. He was very wealthy man when he visited US and spent a few days with me. I could see that Chandu was not sharing something; something deep and personal. We have not been seeing each other and it seemed like that the distance between has grown. Age does this to us, what we would have been able to share as friends when we were young can no longer be shared. So I and Chandu remained quiet. Chandu being a celebrity there were stories in some papers about the gaps between him and his father and some troubles in the family. But now I did not know Chandu that well, so I did not bring it up.

The last scene

I did not hear from Chandu again. He turned out to be an alcoholic, joined AA but never could conquer it till he succumbed to it. I met some of our common friends and heard that Chandu was humiliated by the lack of recognition by his family. His father had never forgiven Chandu’s running away. Chandu’s family was isolated and even Chandu’s wife left him on account of the frictions between him and his family.

The questions I ask myself

Chandu’s case throws out some questions to ask ourselves on talent management at home in the family-

Why are some parents so busy that they cannot recognize and nurture talents in their kids?

Is it right for parents to have fixations on the careers that their children must pursue?

How to convince parents to accept that all careers have social value?

Why do some parents of talented children push the kids too much to monetize on the kid too soon?

Why are the child celebrities always talking about missing a childhood?

If we can answer the above questions we have not much to worry about. Even if we cannot the world will move on.. .nothing to worry about.

Questions you can answer in the comment Box If you like

1. Did Chandu take the right decision to take off without informing any one? What would you do If you were Chandu?

2 . Was it right on the part of Chandu’s father to expect Chandu to take a job with

steady income instead of acting?

Dedicated to Chandu my dear friend.