#42 - Inner Engineering - Me and the Son
Taking a break from the Product posts, and sharing a parenting experience with my son. If this is something that you’d like to skip, more product posts coming soon :)
A while back, I wrote my first post on Inner Engineering. On why it’s important to sometimes take a pause and tend to your well-being, spend quality time, and experience life that’s in the wild. That life astonishes me. It quiets the negative voices inside of me and allows the more constructive ones to talk. It humbles me. It reminds me of how small I am, like a firefly in the blink of the night.
This time I wanted my son Deeyan and me to work together on our Inner Engineering. I’ve had many “nobody will buy it” ideas in my 39 years, but I think my idea to lead my son, Deeyan, on a “Mother-Son - Rite of Passage” (a coming-of-age experience before he enters teenage) - wilderness expedition is one of my best, ever. A trip that I had in my mind for a couple of years now, I wanted to have that opportunity to connect with him in a disconnected world. A trip that takes us away from the chaos of life and creates opportunities to bond, learn to adapt when things don’t go as planned, listen to the sounds of gushing rivers and the woods and spend quality time with each other.
Of course, I wanted this to be an adventure that not only Mom thought was a good idea, but also the son, so some months ago, I began discussing this with Deeyan, who loved it too. The husband supported the idea too!
Here’s what Deeyan and I came up with: We’d spend a couple of days in the hills at Mussoorie, then we’d go on a backpacking trek for 2 days reaching the peak of Nag Tibba at 3022m . We’d then go to Rishikesh for a rafting expedition and witness the Ganges in its full might and then on Day 7 head back home.The constant endeavour is to raise an independent, happy, adventurous and a curious kid.
We started our trip in Mussoorie, a hill station near Dehradun. The night views of Dehradun city from our hotel were breathtaking. I wanted to start him off easy, so our first hotel was a beautiful resort at the top of the peak. Deeyan called it Iron Man’s Malibu mansion ;)
We spent a couple of nights here and then off to the more off-roading experiences that I had planned.
We reached our trek village, Pantwari in a shared car, with 11 other local villagers. That was not the original plan, and after some moments of expressing anguish over this travel arrangement, Deeyan accepted that that’s how we will reach our trek starting point. En route with us were teachers who travelled every week from Dehradun to Pantwari, teaching local kids during the week and travelling back to their homes over the weekend. They inspired both of us, we think that with all the travel and hectic work life, it’s only us who are slogging away - they gave us a reality check!
As we started the trek, I felt a mix of excitement and apprehension. Both of us had not been on an overnight trek before and we were clearly pushing our boundaries. I started the trek with a feeling that I had the responsibility of Deeyan and myself, and ended the trek feeling I was being “mothered” the entire time! :)
The air on the mountain was crisp and fresh, and the sunlight filtered through the trees, casting dappled shadows on the forest floor.
As we climbed higher, the trail became steeper, and we had to use our hands to scramble up the rocky terrain. Learnt a few techniques - One small step, one breath at a time, and never look beyond 50m when climbing up. The higher we climbed, the more breathtaking the views became.
We reached the base camp and had sleeping bags for our beds. The trek needed both of us to adapt at different points in time, and we quickly did that. The trek allowed us to connect with nature and with each other in a profound way.
The next day we continued our upward climb to the peak of Nag Tibba and saw snow-clad Himalayas in the backdrop. We rested in the green fields and I slept for a while under the blue skies. Green pine forests and the warm sunlight were soothing to the soul.
We trekked for almost 7 hours non-stop and then reached back onto our base Pantwari. He was constantly ahead of me, and kept looking back, and shouting out to me - “Mom are you Ok”. It melted my heart!
Throughout the trip so far, he was making sure my phone is fully charged, that I don’t carry the backpack for too long, that I will be cold if I am not wearing my shoes but chappals, not waking me up even if he was awake in the morning, packing his bags whenever we are about to checkout - it really did not feel that I was with an 11-year-old!
I thought back to the goals we shared as we started down the trail, and felt good like we got what we came for. Deeyan grew. I grew. We grew. And we had a lot of fun, too. I will never forget our adventure.
From there it was again a shared transport to Dehradun and another one to Rishikesh. It was with the village locals again, but this time we were more accepting of the fact that we do this to quickly get from point A to B. En route we interacted with folks who had never seen a world outside Uttarakhand but were extremely happy living their lives.
On reaching Rishikesh, we checked into our hostel, our final stop on the trip. People from across the world were living in this place and it was a vibrant space full of live music. This was my 5th time to this Dev Bhoomi (land of Gods), once solo as well and I find a magnetic power that draws me here each time.I think it’s the majestic Ganga in its full glory that pulls me here. For some, it’s a river, a goddess to others, but for me, it is a spiritual experience. Every single time!
That evening we witnessed the grand Ganga Aarti at the Triveni ghat, and I had goose bumps all over. Brilliant live performances and grandeur as we all worshipped Ganga together. Deeyan looked on with much curiosity and excitement.
The right value for money for a product/ service is a concept hard to teach but comes only with time. On one local trip in Rishikesh, a cab driver asked for a thousand bucks for a short distance, we did not have a choice at that point but to take it, however, Deeyan kept saying - Mom, this price is too high for this distance. When we had to get back, we took a shared tuk-tuk , walked a bit and took another tuk-tuk to wrap up the trip within 250 bucks. He kept counting the spending till we reached our hostel, and had a feeling of accomplishment on saving the 750 bucks!
One of the biggest struggles I have, on an almost daily basis, is worrying about whether I’m a good enough mom. Do I spend enough time with my son? I am all consumed with work on weekdays, is that Ok? This isn’t unique to me. I know from other women and also men in my life, personal and professional, that we struggle with whether we’re good enough. We constantly deal with our inner critic(s), in the context of our role as a parent. However today, as I am sitting by the Ganga seeing it gushing away, I feel something I don’t often feel – a pride as a mom.
I have had lots of ideas in my life, and some of them have been called out as too far-fetched, or impractical. But I think this mother-son Rite of Passage expedition was one of my best ideas, ever!
Closing this post with an apt passage by Khalil Gibran’s “On Children” from The Prophet:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Amazing, Shweta
Truly inspiring another mother to experience such beautiful moment’s with their kids.. I enjoyed reading it and feeling every word of it as a mother .❤️
So lovely to see this Shweta. Very inspired and have bookmarked it to follow through before my boys enter their teen years.