Love your post Bhavya.
Yes Koki is overbearing and controlling at the same time she lives for her kids, most especially Ahem, I would much prefer her brand of punishment and let the person learn their lesson than javade Hetal, because this is negative reinforcement, this gives them opportunity to act out again because they know they can be easily forgiven.
Is Koki asking Ahem to iron clothes a big punishment (May be) I don't see anything wrong with it, because I grew up in the US and all men and women are treated equal here. I am married into a traditional gujarati family but one thing I have to say for my mother in law, she may not have taught my husband all household chores, but she taught her son and daughter both to take care of their own clothes and iron them also.
My husband helps me to do laundry and not only irons his clothes but will offer to do ours also. In the past he has gone as far as ironing mine and my MIL's sari's also. I don't see anything wrong with it.
May be Koki in her own way wants Ahem to see what kind of work his wife does everyday. Who knows why she does what she does, but the end results will be in Gopi and Ahems favor.
I see Koki's punishment as a positive reinforcement, it gets immediate results, as we saw both Gopi and Ahem realize their mistakes in what they did and know that what they did was wrong. Now they are paying the prize of not thinking things thru.
Now Hetal and Jigar's negative reinforcement on Rashi, we wills see the result of this eventually.
This is child psychology but if your at your wits ends, as Koki is with Gopi and her blind belief in Rashi, then you do what you have to do to protect the ones you love. We may not like it, but in the end it is the best thing for us.
Edited by sbp1971 - 13 years ago
