Of back-benchers and back seats

Many of us start out as habitual back-benchers. We go through school and college at the rear of the class, hidden from view of the teacher or facilitator. We don’t want to call attention to ourselves. We are quite happy in that anonymous position on the periphery, watching from the sidelines. We can do what we feel like doing — not necessarily our best — and be safely swallowed by the crowd.

Then, too short a time later, we enter the work place and suddenly the days of back-benching are over. Now, we have to make our presence felt. We have to propel ourselves forward. We cannot let the next project — and the raise in position or pay — go to the person beside us. We have to vie for it. And even if we still do not desire to hog the limelight or be the star of the show, we learn to hold our own. In the next phase, with families of our own, we become the catalysts and the change makers. Gone are the days of the back-bencher who let things happen and just went with the flow. Now we have to take all the difficult decisions, plan, hold forth in the home and in the workplace. We become the mover and shaker in our lives, the lives of our children and the lives of the older generation — and it becomes a habit.

And then, slowly, almost unnoticed, equations change. We become the older generation and in little imperceptible ways, then larger, more glaring ones, we become aware that it is time to take a back seat. But by now, we have grown accustomed to saying our piece. We have in our circle of acquaintances and friends and colleagues (some of us often, some of us sometimes), been admired for our efficiency, our work, our energy, our facility with words, our ease with people — or even just our style of dressing.

All of us have those few moments in the spotlight. But are they enough for us? Can we now move back gracefully and enjoy someone else’s show?

It is perhaps one of the most difficult things to learn, but you would probably agree, the best ones to teach us how to take a back seat are our children. (Didn’t we do it for our parents — refusing to participate or even be present when they tried desperately to be ‘with it’ and did the ‘shake’ and the ‘jerk’ to the music of the 70s and 80s?)

Embarrassed expression

Yes, our children are barely teenagers when we begin to see a particularly embarrassed expression on their faces when we drop a brick — or display unbearable ignorance of the technology that their generation takes for granted. We hear a pained ‘Puh-lease’ on a dozen or more occasions and even the slowest, the most bull-headed and thick-skinned among us, begins to get the hint. It is over. We don’t have to wait until we are told in no uncertain terms to back off. Our moments in the sun are done.

It is only when we observe those who can barely recall what day of the week it is but insist on keeping alive their desire to be out and about — be they politicians, celebrities, or members of our own friends and family circle — that we look back at what our children have taught us with gratitude.

The back seat doesn’t imply that we have crossed a mysterious ‘use-by’ date and are no longer relevant to the modern world. Rather, we participate, we share, we care — all from a different place and perspective. Where the view is astounding: whether we gaze inward, upward, outward or around.

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.