Quality Time

On a Sunday, while I was waiting in a hotel lobby for one of my business meetings, I saw a family I had known for a few years coming towards me. We met after maybe a year. They were there for dinner. Both accomplished doctors with their two early teenage sons reading in a top school in Bhubaneswar.

The father stopped for a few minutes of pleasantries while the rest of the family headed for the restaurant to take their seats and proceed with the evening’s routine. As our discussion got a little longer courtesy MMS and NaMo, I had to egg the father to join the group as they would be waiting for him. He brushed me aside by saying that the kids are pros in ordering food as it’s their weekly routine. Weekly? My middle-class sensibilities were stirred considering the cost of these weekly routines.  

Father matter of factly confided that their routine on any weekday starts early morning with sending the kids to school and he and his wife rushing to their respective workplaces and both of them returning from work late evening and dealing with the waiting patients. By the time they are free, the kids usually have retired for the day and that leaves no time for them to spend quality time with their kids, So, he has resolved to disconnect from work every Sunday and bring the kids to this restaurant where the kids are let loose to order whatever they want and that’s the only way they manage to eke time out of their busy schedule. He has been successfully sticking to this schedule for the last one year.

Exchanges over, father left me to join his family and I was left alone waiting for my guest who by this time was cool 30 minutes late and had not bothered to update me about his arrival. I chose to take a stroll around the hotel and, through the large glass pane saw the family again. I couldn’t stop myself from being a voyeur from the safety of the semi-dark corner and behind the screen of condensed water vapour that had built up on the glass pane by then.

By then the restaurant was half full with an eclectic mix of guests. Few foreigners in the corner with the practised disinterest in their surroundings, a few lonely business travellers nursing their drinks and checking out their surroundings less out of curiosity and more out of their effort to break their monotony and seated on two conjoined tables, a big noisy group of some local businessmen, where everyone seems to be talking to everyone along with their friends who were on the other side of their oversized phones - all potbellied and bejewelled.

Food by then was served. Mother was gingerly nibbling on the starters and father was leaning over to serve the kids. Kids were in no competition with each other as there was enough for everyone. In between father received a text and left the table and got engaged in a long conversation. Nothing changed in his absence and all went about their own chores with practiced routine. The place resembled an assembly line. By the time the father returned, the captain had got the cue to present the check and the father hurriedly stuffed the cold food on his plate while the kids by them had started playing with his cell phone. The check was presented and duly paid. The family ambled out of the restaurant after spending quality time with each other.

In my engrossed engagement, I had forgotten to check my phone which had a text from the guest I had been expecting for the last 45 minutes informing me to postpone the meeting as he was stuck at a place. With no option left, I headed for my car thinking about that family and their quality time.

I saw a picture-perfect family having dinner and spending their time with each other but in the back of my mind, I felt something somewhere was missing.

They were not talking to each other.

They had nothing to share or didn’t want to know anything about each other. They had nothing to discuss with so many things happening around them. They had nothing to fondly remember together. They had no issues to debate over or to disagree with. No laugh. No argument. Everything seemed as if was in conformity with a script – an assembly line of craftsmen.

My middle-class mind trained to conform to stereotypes was not at ease. Many thoughts crossed my mind. What is this so-called quality time? What one is supposed to do there? Is being physically in one place with the other qualifies as time together? What kind of life the present-day families lead that they don’t have to interact with each other for anything even after getting time after 6 days. Have the kids been trained and taught not to share? If all their needs -both material and emotional are fulfilled? Do they have anyone to discuss if they want to?

Determined now I am to know what exactly spending ‘Quality time’ with kids is all about and if we are doing it right or not. Or we are just happy meeting the material needs of our children so that they don’t distract us from our tireless pursuit of material gains? Have we trained our own children to see us as mere ATMs? What are we doing about transferring our inherited values and lifetime learnings – our wisdom, Social Skills, and Life Skills?

Phew! I had resolved to stay positive in my mind.