Great Expectations

Expectations are like mother's milk... *essential* (there was this movie that had a dialog that stuck with me). Sometimes, it seems so true, kids betray their parents & blow their expectations. Others do too.

But the other way is not true with parents. They do have expectations from children but all of them are so-selfless; they are not ego-based (except in Hindi movies: "Papa kehte hain bada naam karega...") Parents do not expect things in return when they do good unto us. People say that parents take care of their kids so that the kids can inturn take care of them when grown-up. Recently, with the floods in north-east India, I saw a newspaper photo that had a mother neck-deep in water carrying her child on the head. Now, in this fight for survival, the mother wouldn't even know if she'll live on... but she wants her child to survive. She's not thinking that this child will take care of her because she's crossed him across the flood! The child may easily forget, but the mother won't think of this. Its pretty saddening that most of the children look back on how their parents treated them and then decide of how well to treat them. Parents don't have such point of reference. They mostly like to give their children more than what their parents gave them, no matter how the kid.

Why can't children be so? Or friends? Some friends always end up pointing out your mistakes in an argument. They dig into your problems just to say that they're wiser. If you do a few good things unto a friend, you expect her to live her life according to you! Why have such expectations? Be a parent. Just do good and forget about it. As an old Hindi saying goes: neki kar kuen mein daal.