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Dear mums and dads of badly behaved children

In the non-cinematic realm, I know someone who says: Indian kids are so badly behaved and that gora bacha (white kids) are better disciplined.

There is a scene in the film Sense of an Ending where Jim Broadbent's character Anthony Webster is meeting, after some 40 years, the character of Veronica Ford, played by Charlotte Rampling. They're at a café in London. He's trying to bring up a difficult, awkward topic while registering the changes of time on physicality, how they look different from they did at university. He's circling, choosing words. It's not easy. Some brats behind their table are making it harder, being nuisances, banging the table with cutlery. He's trying to rise above, block them out. They're getting louder. He loses it. Turns around and says loudly, "Look! I think you'll find the zoo is north of the river. Unbelievable."
I loved that scene. I love that he ticked off the brats. 'Curmudgeon' his wife and daughter call him. It's only a film, but it was satisfying to watch.
In the non-cinematic realm, I know someone who says: Indian kids are so badly behaved and that gora bacha (white kids) are better disciplined. I don't agree. Seen enough of both. Whether in Dubai or elsewhere, you're invariably exposed to a whole variety of badly behaved brats.
There was a small study done in the US recently of 170 families. Basically, 48 per cent of parents said they interrupt their parenting time to use a digital device at least three times a day. Does this mean the more parents are on the phone, the wilder the kids grow? (http://tinyurl.com/y7fuull3)
Last weekend, we had gone to this place in JLT for a thali. Typical Indian joint, cheap, good-ish food with some ridiculous names on the menu. There was something called a 'khichda'. I'm not kidding: dal khichdi and palak khichdi. Nevermind the "beetroot galauti kebab," which got the goat of one of my meat-loving dining companions. But khichda??
Anyway, my point was, at this restaurant, a few tables to my left, there was a large Indian family, offspring and all, and one of these kids had her face stuck to an iPad. She was playing some game, Monster Want Burger or Clumsy Ninja, or whatever it is they play. For the first five minutes, I tried to block out the annoying shrill notes. But I pay to sit in a restaurant. Don't I implicitly also pay to not have some high-pitched pings and polyphonic kiddie game sounds ring in my ears for the time I take to finish off the non-khichda dishes on the table?
I think it was just one of those weekends because the next afternoon, again - we really do eat out a lot! - at lunch, this time a white brat on a high chair was screaming intermittently. The universe put him there to make me to rub my temples. The tyke didn't seem to be in agony. He seemed like he was screaming - short bursts - out of excitement. Then he took to banging the table with the steel cutlery. Banging a formica table with steel cutlery causes a biting, repetitive, universally unpleasant sound. I had to keep myself from losing it. What are these parents doing wrong? And why is it that out of decency or whatever, other people have to not go up to them and tell them to, for god's sake, up their parenting?
In a Shatabdi train in India two months ago, I couldn't deal with an extended family of screaming children, grandparents, aunts, all of it. I couldn't concentrate on anything, not my book. Not on getting any sleep. And I had to go to who I thought was the father and say, excuse me, there are other people in this train. It's a public space. You need to tell them to stop screaming, and please lower the volume on that iPad game! It's rude to others. You know what the dad told me? "They're not listening, what can I do." I was stunned. Not listening? They're your children! For you to enjoy and rear, not to unleash on the rest of us who haven't asked for this! I get that it's tough and exhausting and non-stop.
I would never grudge a screaming infant in an airplane. It would irk me, but it's understandable. Poor baby, etc. But these are older kids. They should have been taught better. Maybe that study is on to something. If disciplining has to do with kids not seeing their parents on devices, then please, moms, dads, get off that damn phone. The rest of us could really do with a little quiet.
 nivriti@khaleetimes.com