Parents on a Leash — Dialogue with Over-Controlling Urban Parents

Setting: A sunlit morning in Madhukar’s mud courtyard. Birds chirp in the guava trees. A fresh pot of ragi porridge simmers on the clay stove. A luxury car arrives, uncomfortably shiny in the earthy silence.

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[Scene Begins]

(A well-dressed couple steps out. The man, in a blazer and sports shoes, looks at his smartwatch. The woman, in a crisp sari, carries a leather-bound planner. They seem nervous but determined.)

Madhukar (smiling as he pours water into clay cups):

Come, sit. Even the wind pauses here before speaking.

Father:

We’ve come because of our son. He’s… not himself.

Mother (cutting in):

He’s such a brilliant child. Topped every class. Olympiad, coding, debate, piano, swimming. But recently, he’s been… crying for no reason. Says his chest hurts. Doctors call it a “panic attack.”

Madhukar (offers water):

And what do you call it?

Mother (confused):

Weakness? Or maybe pressure… but all children face pressure. We’re giving him the best.

Father:

Exactly. He has every opportunity we didn’t. We sacrificed vacations, worked extra jobs. He must make it big. This is how success looks today.

Madhukar (points to a crow feeding its chick nearby):

That mother feeds, protects… then lets the chick fly. She doesn’t tie a rope to its leg and drag it to the sky.

Mother:

Are you saying we’re hurting him?

Madhukar:

I’m saying you’re afraid. And your fear is disguised as love.

Father (defensive):

Afraid? We’re just planning. The world is competitive. Without achievement, a child gets left behind.

Madhukar:

Left behind… from what? The rat race you never got to win?

(The couple is silent. The woman’s planner slips slightly from her lap.)

Madhukar:

Tell me… when was the last time your son did something just for joy?

Mother:

Joy? He doesn’t have time for that. He has IIT coaching, French classes…

Madhukar:

So joy was removed from his timetable?

Father:

He says he misses playing with mud. With neighborhood boys. But that’s just childishness.

Madhukar (gently):

Maybe his soul is crying for the mud. Not the medals.

Mother (tears welling):

But we wanted the best for him.

Madhukar:

You gave him the best cage. With golden bars. AC, Wi-Fi, designer textbooks. But no sky.

Father:

Then what should we do? Just let him waste time?

Madhukar:

Wasting time is not sitting idle. It’s running in the wrong direction for years.

Let him sit. Stare at trees. Let him be bored. That’s where dreams are born — not in powerpoints.

Mother (whispers):

But if he fails?

Madhukar:

Fail what? The race designed by strangers? Or your expectations?

(Silence. The puppy near Madhukar curls up beside the father’s expensive shoes.)

Madhukar:

A flower doesn’t bloom faster because you shout at it. It opens when the sun is gentle, and the gardener patient.

Father (removes his smartwatch slowly):

Maybe… we were chasing our lost chances through him.

Mother (closes her planner):

And calling it parenting.

Madhukar:

Real parenting is not ownership. It is stewardship. Not shaping, but seeing.

Father:

We want to change. But… we don’t know how.

Madhukar:

Start by doing less. Cancel something each day. Make room for boredom, for conversations, for silence. Let the leash fall.

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[Scene Ends]

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Scene Two: The Silence After the Storm

Setting: A high-rise apartment in Bengaluru. Evening light filters in. The walls are lined with certificates, trophies, and schedules pinned on corkboards. But something’s different now.

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[Scene Begins]

(The child, Rishi, age 13, sits on the floor by the window, painting quietly with fingers dipped in color. His tongue sticks out in concentration. No timer. No tutor. Just light, color, and breath.)

Father (watching from the doorway, tie loosened, shoes off):

He hasn't touched his coding laptop in two days.

Mother (sitting beside him on the floor with a soft smile):

And yet, he looks more alive than he has in months.

Father (glancing at the cleared wall where the weekly planner used to be):

You know... I almost put it back this morning.

Mother:

But you didn’t.

Father:

Because I remembered Madhukar saying, "The flower doesn't need a schedule to bloom. Just space."

(They fall into a silence. It’s not awkward. It’s healing.)

Mother (quietly):

I used to wake up checking his schedule before even brushing my teeth. I thought that was love.

Father:

I thought pressure built diamonds. But it was crushing him.

(Rishi walks over with his painting — a messy, joyful swirl of trees, a crow, a sleeping puppy, and a small boy flying a kite.)

Rishi:

Look, Amma! This is the place you went… with the man in the orange shawl.

Mother (tears up):

You remembered?

Rishi:

I felt it. Even before you told me. It feels like breathing.

Father (kneeling down):

Would you like to go there sometime?

Rishi (nodding):

Can I take my football?

Mother (laughs):

No French, no physics, just football?

Rishi:

And mud.

Father:

Yes. Take all the mud you want.

(They all laugh. For the first time in a long time, it’s not forced. The child runs back to paint more. The parents sit quietly beside each other, holding hands without saying anything. No phone buzzes. No door slams. Just wind, and the distant sound of a child humming.)

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Scene Three: The Bloom Without Orders

Setting: A small community park near their apartment, two weeks later. It's early morning. The sun is still yawning, the ground is damp. Children’s laughter is carried on the wind, mingled with birdsong.

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[Scene Begins]

(Rishi is playing barefoot football with neighborhood kids, his laughter ringing out like a bell. His hair is messy, his t-shirt stained with mud. No tutor in sight. No stopwatch ticking.)

(His father sits on a bench nearby, sipping chai from a roadside kulhad. His mother sits cross-legged on the grass, sketching in a notebook. Her sari is loosely draped, her planner replaced by a cloth pouch of colors.)

Father:

Remember how we used to scold him for getting dirty?

Mother:

Yes… as if mud could erase his brilliance.

(They watch Rishi run to help a smaller boy who fell, dust him off, and crack a joke to make him laugh. The boy smiles, eyes shining.)

Father (softly):

That... That’s success, isn’t it?

Mother (nodding):

That’s leadership. Compassion. Joy.

(A stranger walks past, watching the game.)

Stranger:

That kid’s got natural game sense. Which academy is he with?

Father (smiling):

None. Just the academy of trees and bruises.

(The stranger chuckles and walks on. The couple look at each other — not proud in the old way, but moved. Their pride is no longer sharp, anxious. It is soft, like sunlight.)

Mother:

He asked me yesterday why the crow feeds the baby even though it can’t win any medals.

Father (smiling):

What did you say?

Mother:

I told him — love isn’t a transaction. It’s a song that doesn’t need an audience.

(A gust of wind lifts some leaves. Rishi runs up, panting, cheeks flushed.)

Rishi:

Appa! Amma! Can we go to that mud house again? I want to show Madhukar my painting.

Father:

We’d love that.

Mother:

We’ll bring some ragi laddus for the puppy too.

(They laugh, together now — not as parents burdened by performance, but as humans discovering life again through their child’s unshackled eyes.)

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Epilogue: When the Child Leads the Way

Setting: Six months later. The mud house in Karnataka. The neem tree is in full bloom. The sun is setting behind the hills. The air smells of smoke, earth, and something holy — not from incense, but from silence.

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[Scene Begins]

(Rishi, now sun-kissed and confident, walks barefoot toward the neem tree with a basket of guavas and a rolled-up painting. He’s taller now — not in inches, but in spirit.)

(His parents walk behind him slowly, their clothes simple, their backs relaxed. No branded bags, no power posture. They are simply… present.)

(Madhukar sits under the tree with the sleeping puppy beside him. Rishi runs up and bows gently.)

Rishi:

I brought you guavas from our terrace garden… and a new painting.

(Madhukar opens it — a watercolor of the same neem tree, but with three birds flying free from a nest. In the sky above is a single line: “Love doesn’t lock. It opens.”)

Madhukar (smiling):

Did you paint this alone?

Rishi (grinning):

No. Amma helped with the leaves. Appa picked the words.

(The parents join them. They sit on the ground, the same spot they had once sat in fear, pride, and confusion. Today, they sit in stillness.)

Father:

I didn’t come today as a father. I came as a student.

Mother:

And I didn’t come to ask questions. I came to listen to the wind.

Madhukar (softly):

Then you have arrived.

(The puppy stirs and rests its head on Rishi’s lap. The neem leaves rustle gently. No one speaks. There’s nothing to fix. Nothing to prove.)

(From the edge of the forest, a peacock calls. The family watches the horizon in peace. The leash is gone. The child is free. And so are they.)

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