I was watching Virat and Sunil Chetri’s recorded Instagram live chat which had happened earlier during the day. It was fun and I was glued to my phone throughout. In middle of the program my mom was providing me with some key updates from lock down 4.0. As it was a recorded program, I was promptly pausing it while she was talking so I could give her my complete attention. And, this happened multiple times. She understood that I’m telling her in a subtle way that I’m watching this program and so I shouldn’t be disturbed. I continued to watch the program later without interruptions.
During the program at one stage when these two guys were talking about their mothers coincidentally Virat got a call from his mother. He immediately picked the call and told her that he will call her back after his program. Apparently, his mother was telling him that restrictions are relaxed a bit now and to check if he can fly home to meet her.
This moment was a reality check and struck me hard. For Virat, I was getting little restless on my mom and then this guy picks the call from his mom even though he was on live with millions of people on insta!
Celebrities like Virat and Chetri constantly engages their millions of fan base by being active on these platforms and on the other hand my mother is not on any social media and doesn’t have so many people to talk to except few. We make every attempt to connect with our friends all over the world through various social media platforms as we want to keep ourselves updated on everything happening in their world however we don’t have much time to give for our parents. What they need from us is sometime for them.
The celebrities have fans worldwide but for our parents, we are their world. Now it is up to us to fix it and get our priorities right.
BTW, my mom is so innocent that she doesn’t understand some delicacies even when I’m on business calls. It doesn’t matter to her if I’m on my headphone/ mike, I still must try the hot Saaru she has prepared or taste the freshly made Puliyogare gojju. sometimes she even makes me smell the freshly made chutney paid or saaru powder or freshly powdered ginger paste!! My mom is no different from my 5-year-old daughter when it comes to interruptions during the calls 🙂 Parents are like little kids who needs our constant attention.
We may get little stressed with these now but trust me these memories will bring smile on your face one day.
Let’s try to keep our phone aside if we are not doing something very important while our parents or for that matter anyone talking to us. that’s the least respect we can give to other individuals. Our children will be watching us and we need to set good examples and giving someone 100% of the attention is certainly on my list of top etiquettes.
Vidya Hanbal 