Wondering years

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Blame it on the hormones and the unpredictable body changes. Turning into a teenager has never been easy. Weaselling out of it is impossible but you’re always left wondering why the people around you just can’t leave you alone.

“I remember when I hit 15. I felt like I was 25 and that everybody around me wasn’t worth my time. It got to me more because I would see my sister adjust so well and she was just a year older. I’m 19 now but I realise how much I must have troubled my parents then,” says Rajnish Shah, a BA student.
Rajnish’s mother Sonal Shah, a mediaperson, doesn’t think her son did anything out of the ordinary as a teenager. “I agree that it was tough to get through to him at times because he always argued back. However, it’s just normal behaviour. I think I was the same with my parents when I was that age,” she laughs.
Ila Banerjee, 16, believes teenage angst is often given more importance than it deserves. “In my Psychology class, we’re taught how stressful adolescence can be. It’s funny how they teach it to us and then treat us like deviants. It’s for this reason that us teenagers are in a hurry to grow up and once we hit 20 or 21, we wish we could go back to those days,” she says.
But traffic’s traffic and you go where life takes you. Student counsellor Amrita Shiv agrees that the beginning of adolescence is hard for both — parents and teens. However, it’s also one of the best periods for both sides to test their relationship. “There are some parent-child relationships that are volatile but the true test lies in how they find their feet after the dust settles,” she says.