The Farex Wars

There is a moment in parenting life when parents try and feed food to the infant. And we are talking about a human being which has lived on this planet only for very few months. It probably does not even know that it has fingers, legs and a mouth. It has no case history or assessment of the reputation of its parents. This infant, at this stage, decides that its parents are wrong. Thats simply it. It turns its face the other way and refuses food. In effect it is telling the parents; "you are wrong. you don't know stuff. I know better and I am saying I don't want this food". This is the beginning of several decades long Farex wars that happens between a parent and a child. This is the first foray and a harbinger of many such things to come.

The parents and child are locked in a tussle on a variety of subjects: school, marks, sports, lunch, breakfast, dinner, tiffin, mid-tiffin, special dinner, going to cinema, not going to cinema, talking to relatives, paying respect to elders, religion, diet, weight, height, color of finger nails, slipper choice, dress choice, boyfriend, girlfriends, friends, marriage, work, spending money, choice of sofa, having children, naming the children, shashti-abhda-poorthi, booking cook for shashti-abdha-poorthi, sadha-abhishekam, booking cook for sadha-abishekam, driving scooter after 80 years, travelling in second class, travelling, not travelling, booking tickets to America, staying in America for 6 months, old age home, will, and finally love.

Here are two germ-sized people standing on a rock of dust hurling through space, locked in a tremendous tussle. A long line of ancestors are standing in line trying to push upwards and downwards. They are standing with arms locked trying to push the other and the other won't budge. Yet there is love. Like a rough and sturdy coconut cover that wraps around its tender kernel, the farex wars wraps itself around the purest love in the world.