Raising Stars

Bringing up children is both an art and a science. The parents must have certain skills as well as qualities and value systems if the children are to grow up into good human beings. How do the Bollywood stars bring up their children? That is an interesting subject which probably no one studied seriously until Rashmi Uchil did. The result of her study is the book titled Raising Stars: The challenges and joys of being a Bollywood parent.

The book brings us the examples of no less than 26 Bollywood personalities on how they brought up their children in spite of their hectic schedules and other demands of the profession. In each chapter, the author highlights one particular virtue or skill or quality from each of these stars to teach us about the importance of that aspect in bringing up children. Managing anger, for example, is the topic of the first chapter where Mahima Chowdhary is our example. We move on to gender equality, confidence, discipline, etc, and end with spirituality which is highlighted with the example of Yukta Mookey’s Zen practices.

The book is a practical guide to parenting. Even if you are a very busy person, even if you have a lot of demanding responsibilities, you need to pay serious attention to your children if they are to be good human beings when they grow up.

Each chapter is divided into two sections: the first is an introduction to the theme and the second is a narrative spoken by a famous Bollywood artiste. Chapter 4, for instance, is on discipline. The introduction tells us that discipline is not the same as punishment. Not at all. In fact, the two have little in common. A child subjected to harsh disciplinary measures is only going to learn two lessons, says Rashmi Uchil, the author, in her introduction to the chapter. One, how to outsmart authority figures; and two, that they are bad children and are undeserving.

Uchil mentions an Adverse Childhood Experiences Study conducted by some psychologists who researched the history of 17,000 patients of certain chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes and depression. The result was that these individuals had abusive, punitive parents.

This book may not be very profound but is utterly practical. The author was a film journalist. The book does read like a journalistic work. Hence it may appear shallow in places. Nevertheless, it does inspire and extend practical guidelines to young parents on various aspects of parenting.

In some places, the book acquires poignant depths. One striking example is Javed Akhtar speaking about religious upbringing of children. “Trust me, all those people who are good are good not because of their religion but despite it,” he asserts. “Let me suggest an exercise. Take a world map and mark all the countries and places where religion is dominant. Now take another world map and mark those countries and places where human rights are most violated, women are treated only a little better than animals and where there is hardly any freedom of expression. You will find that on both maps you have marked the same countries and the same places.” 

It is not religion or moral science class that moulds good human beings out of children. “Children don’t do what you tell them to do,” Akhtar goes on. “They do what you do.” Your example is the religion for children. You can be as religious as you a human being possibly can, but if your deeds are foul your children are likely to go astray.

“When you are at peace, your child senses it,” the author tells us towards the end of the book. “The child is at peace too. When you operate from a space of love, the child blooms to their full potential.” You, as a parent, is of immense value in your child’s life.

This book may not be the best in the genre but it merits attention from young parents. Especially because we are living in highly troubled times when children are going through utterly baffling realities which are not what they seem.