Signs of the Universe
One year into quarantine certainly has its perks.
College was never good for me. I could write that down without a second thought. My social activity graph took a deep dive, I couldn’t make it with teachers, I was hospitalized for an entire sem, there were barely people I connected with and there were times I felt an absolute void.
I disconnected more and more every day. And for all of this I blamed my parents, I blamed fate, and I blamed my invisible creator for taking these harsh pointless decisions that I had no escape from, without ever running it by me in the first place.
For me, everything I had seen for in a future, was done. And the place to look for affection, was home?
Mom would be busy with her four batches of daily tuitions — Something she was more committed to than anyone else in the house was to their responsibilities. For a person whose career started in Physics and rerouted as a higher grade Computer teacher, I was not really taken aback by the fact that she’s juggling tuitions for high school Chemistry as well now. She’d stay up till 3 in the morning learning concepts for the next day. Stuff that I had forgotten existed ever since the boards ended 3 years back. Yet she’d wake up at 7 to warm up the kitchen to keep our stomachs from wailing on time.
Well, it was mom — she could do it. Why would I be concerned anyway? Mom never complained about it. And after all, it’s her responsibility, right?
I could never really see her as a person of her own. I could never portray her aspirations as superior or even equal to mine at any point. She seemed to just stick with the flow. Nothing out of the box. A generic human with a job that earns meekly. I would certainly not settle.
And dad? Is it in Indian dads to have a long-distance relationship with their sons after the age of 15? I could barely fill up a notebook page with the fair conversations I’ve had with the man and half of that would be in regards to tuition fees or a blowout. I am yet to meet that jolly adventurous person in college photos.
Abiding by chores and with the motivation of nostalgia freeing my thoughts, I went on for my periodic rearrangement of an old cupboard.
Amidst a collection of my childhood albums, clothes, and a lot more memorabilia from my past, I saw a few project papers, notebooks, and photo albums of mom and dad lying around.
My momentum naturally shifted towards the more interesting things at hand. Dad’s Karate notes, Mom’s notebook doodles and project papers, exam answer sheets, and a treasure chest of letters and photos — mostly with unfamiliar faces, buried in time.
After a lot of probing, I finally decided that maybe I’d have some time to hear about these.
Mom had a chuckle and started explaining a college photo of hers. Stories followed — from how her Appacha used to escort her to school, to jumping college gates. From her love of Quizzing to her hostel Dappankuth stories. From her fear of blood to ending up in the waiting list of her medical entrance, being a distinction holder in her own field of engineering. For once in a long time, I saw her lose herself in passionate stories about her own. For once, I saw youthfulness that didn’t exist up until she saw that photograph.
And then she told me how marriage changed her when she was 23. To leave her family and friends to be sent to manage a house, from one where she had a plethora of servants to look after the most basic of her needs.
She had stories of how lavish her childhood was till Appacha came home paralyzed, she had stories of her journey as a wife, as an in-law, and about the “fun juggles” that followed. But above all, she had a story about how she was inducted as a research associate in ER&DC, back when Keltron was a household name and again as a senior dept. head in IHRD — places she’d die to do be in as a young aspiring student.
— But why didn’t you go for it then? It was huge noh?
— Well, you were just three months old, and Dad didn’t have a stable job. So I stayed as a temp. teacher at the Govt High school. This way, I could at least stay near you, feed you, and buy you gifts. And hence my career as a teacher began :)
She said that without a blink, cheerful as ever. I didn’t know how to react. For a minute I questioned the decisions I would take if ever put in that position.
“ Ippo entha enikk ningal ille ”
( So what, don’t I have you all now? )
She could’ve chosen a career she loved. She could’ve chosen a marriage that would’ve liberated her. She could’ve chosen a totally different universe for herself. But instead, standing at rock bottom, she chose to flair some magic into all of our lives instead of her own.
“ Ente thalelezhuth aavum, pakshe athu Njaanum koodi sammadhichittalle? ”
( Would’ve been my fate, but didn’t I allow it in the first place? )
Looking back now, I see the contrast.
I see the depth of expiring passion in Dad’s silence and the flirtatious hope of a better tomorrow in mom’s smile. I see normal people with abnormal sacrifices, at least on a scale that places me as a person.
And the thought struck me — that deep down, no matter how much we graciously siphon off decisions of our fate to the universe,
People end up in places and people end up with people, not because they’re meant to be, but rather because at least a little part of them wants to be.
The little part that subconsciously prioritizes what we think we’d rather. The part that chooses who or what’s worth suffering for, the little part that convinces us who or what’s rather worth sacrificing.
And for all those little tweaks we make, how then can we really blame the Signs of the Universe we forever depend on?
How then do we grow?
