Ah! I know there is no escape from housework.
Wait. You have not read the title correctly. It mentions homework and not housework… the latter gets you a pat from the boss at home but the former is vital for the dreams on which generations are nurtured.
What? How can homework be so important?
Let me tell you a story from my days in the OGs. One of my instructors at the Indian Military Academy was rather fond of repeating ‘the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war’, and so I decided to ask him, ‘What is the importance of ‘more’ in what you’re saying, sir?’
‘An intelligent question. ‘More’ is simply reminding you to do your homework.’
I can tell you I couldn’t have been more intrigued. One word that I was not able to decipher had led to another that made the entire quote sound like a thriller where the cues were well hidden. But the instructor explained to us that we needed to go beyond our brief, beyond what was happening during the official training time and go on with the conditioning of our body and mind even during our free hours. That, he said, is homework. ‘And no officer can hope to become a good officer without concentrating on his homework,’ he concluded, before leaving us to march to the next class.
Years later I now realise how important homework is. It is like the extensive research I do before I sit down to write even a short blog post. It is the reading I always did before I met a team of media planners from some newspaper to negotiate a deal for my organisation. It is like all the interactions and orientations a salesman has before he actually goes out in the market to sell a product. Homework enables dreams to survive and this almost like a parent understanding a child’s aspirations and anticipating all that needs to be done years before any of it may be needed. Yes, homework is definitely a bridge that connects a parent with a kid.
Kids need their parents to do a lot of homework. He (or she) looks at the world and starts dreaming of the way he is going to contribute as an adult… he may wish to become a writer, an actor, an architect, an explorer, or even an entrepreneur of a start-up. After all, the kids today have more access to information than the earlier generations ever had. But to even get closer to those dreams, the kid would need his parent to converse with obstacles and help him overcome them. These obstacles could be about help in sourcing information to getting access to the right amount of funding. Knowing about these obstacles, understanding them, finding and adopting the ways to get over them are all a part of the homework for a parent. It is all about knowing how to plan for a child’s future. This is what my instructor at the academy was talking about.
Homework for adults isn’t a joke. Well, it isn’t something to make you knit your brows and think of terrible things happening if you fumble while doing your homework. I believe that every small effort to recognize the importance of homework is what finally gets it done… done well, if I may add. I mean, only the other day I saw this video on the internet and I think it is fine if I share it with you here:
Planning for the future is really a synonym for homework. Do you just get up one morning and tell your spouse, ‘Honey, let’s pack our bags and leave for a week’s vacation in London.’ This is simply not possible. There is visa to be got and finances to be arranged, tickets to be bought and accommodation to be booked… besides a thousand other little facets to be thought of. So you see, there is homework to be done even if you are a travel enthusiast.
Homework is what links choices with preparation… and I did learn this fact years back. So just as a commando needs to think of mid-night runs with his backpack full of bricks as homework, we all need to look towards the future and plan our moves before it is too late.
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#DoYourHomework
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Arvind Passey
27 January 2016
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This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
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