Tag: people

To parents

Parenting is hard, and I know this because I have great parents. I’ve seen my parents manage to have meat on the table despite struggling to make ends meet. I’ve seen them toil each day just to make my day. I’ve seen them wage battles between them and yet hide them all behind a smile when I enter the room. I’ve seen them go out of their way to keep me comfortable, to provide my needs, to ensure I have my wants, too—even if it put them in an awkward place. I’ve seen them debate over what’s good for me, what’s bad for me, what I should study, where and how I should go to school, how much allowance I’m allowed, how to deal with my adolescent questions, when to have the “alcohol is bad for you” talk. I’ve seen them dabbling in confusion about parenting, and I’ve seen them figure it out. I have great parents.

But they’ve made mistakes, too. It’s easy for me to point out how they should have raised me instead of how they did, but as a child, I’m biased. I’m always going to say that they should’ve let me stay out until 11 PM and let it go if I get home drunk. Not that I’m a “going-out” kind of person, but all children have their own ideas about parenting.

One of the things my mother didn’t do well, is handling my liberties. She forbade certain movies that, when I watched later in life, seemed like nothing to even bother about. She was always over conscious, over protective, over worried that violence in movies would poison my mind. Sometimes it made me hate her—sometimes, I’d wonder why she never trusted me to make the right choices, why she wouldn’t accept that I needed exposure to grow in society.

She always wanted to keep me away from danger—away from the evils of society, to protect me from harassment in public busses, to save me from being mugged in local trains, to help escape cheating boyfriends, to get me through life unscathed and unworried.

She is a great mother.

But I still worry that she’s made me too soft — meek and scared of the great wide world. If I don’t learn the harshness of life, how would I ever face life?

It’s something I think a lot about, something I never stop thinking about.

That’s why I could relate to this poem about parenting. I’m no parent, but as a child I agree with Frank O’Hara. And I think you would, too. Even if you don’t, give this poem a read—it’s got imagery worth your time.

Ave Maria

Seeking change

Brainwashed by high-paying jobs, early marriages, and supposed happiness lifelong, Jose’s parents wanted the same for him. They wanted their perfect son to become the perfect man.

Except he had other ideas. In a uniformed world, he craved individuality, an identity worthy of the rebel he was. He read awakening literature and revolutionary biographies. Furious at society’s evils, he rallied forces to fight for freedom. The ideal son became the ideal protester — a radical change the world never expected.

When they captured him at last, he saw all the 6×8-feet cells, and realised he’d spent a useless life fighting ubiquitousness.

What’s the point of attending a wedding?

attending a wedding

It’s not the first time that I’ve wondered or written about this, and yet every time I accept a glittery invitation from a glowing bride-to-be, I cringe a little on the inside. Most of my acquaintances are work friends, some of them unavoidable colleagues. And when they hand me their wedding invitations asking me to please come with my family—who they don’t even know—and stay on for the reception afterward, get on stage for a group photograph, and a special selfie later on…

Phew.

Just to think about the happenings on at a wedding is tiring enough, and to add pain to pressure, we’d plan to “go as a team”. Because it’s a colleague, and because we’d have to face them every day once they return from their wedding celebrations, the team would make a unanimous decision to attend the reception at least.

When the day dawns bright and sunny for others, and dull and boring for me, we start calling up each other. “Where are we meeting, how’re we going?” “Let’s take a cab, and share the fare, let’s stay for a couple of hours and share the ride back.” “Let’s get them a gift card, and every one can pitch in a pinch of their salary.”—No one would care if one of us a little low on cash.

We’d call a cab and the driver takes forever to find our picket fences. We’s cruise along the street, on a ride that takes the better part of an hour. And as we near the venue, everyone would scramble on Google Maps trying to locate a wedding hall that seems to have disappeared from the street. The invitation would state the “event” starts at five and we’d be still trying to find the place at five thirty. After going round in circles, we’d at last find the place and head in—only to find that the bride still isn’t ready. The groom would be standing by his room door, on the phone with his busy boss as if his office couldn’t live without him.

I’d sneak a glance at my phone and it’d be 6 pm. The invitation would say 5, and the actual event would start at 7. We’d hang around people watching, manoeuvring around excited cousins running about munching sweets and old classmates of the bride in bright dresses, pouting their lips to flashes from iPhone 7s.

I’d look around at the groom and his best man talking with serious eyes and nervous laughter. The sister would run up to her brother—the groom—and flatten out his suit like a mother flipping out.

And we’d wait, sipping on a watery coffee, too understanding, too decent, and too annoyed to complain, until they exchange the rings, cut the cake, and call us for photos and gifts. We’d get in line after the bunch of squeaky young girls who spread whiffs of sweat and perfume as they flip their curls in my face. And when it’s our turn to wish the happy couple, I, along with the rest of the team, pull on a big fat smile on my face as if there’s no where else I’d rather be. We’d then pose for a group photo and a video clip for the couple’s photographer, and then someone in the team would pull out their iPhone demanding a groupie—as they call it now. First a front-facing, everyone-pouting photo for Facebook, and then a say-cheese Boomerang for Instagram, and at last a decent photo for the office WhatsApp group.

And I, since I’m not an absolute kill joy, would smile and go along. And at last, the photo session would end, we’d exit the stage so that the next group of friends can repeat the same process, and we’d head out in search of food, hoping it’d be worth the price of the cab and the gift.

Pray, tell me, am I missing the point?

A show

Bethany was small-made, yet boisterous. It was surprising because her parents were nothing like her. Hating those who belittled her, she blew her own trumpet — raising her voice in pointless arguments, bossing the boys to assert equality, strutting the school corridors cursing the canteen food. Despite her bony figure and tiny profile, Bethany’s brassiness baffled all those who interacted with her.

Only years later — after she had children and grandchildren — did they find her diary. She had revealed her true self: a puny child hiding behind a fake voice to fit in to a noisy world.

When death rattles the gate

When I hear that someone died, my first thought always is, “Well, that’s what people do.” I don’t mean to sound cocky but even though I haven’t lost too many people close to me to the unavoidable oblivion, I’m conditioned to death and destruction. Every day, I walk to work on the perilous national highway. I’d witness an accident or what remains of an accident at least once a week. Many a Monday morning, I’ve walked over streaks of dried blood and stepped over shattered glass. Perhaps that’s why I’ve become a little hard on the inside, and cold about reacting to news of death.

However, when I heard a colleague passed away yesterday, I realised that even I’m not all parched on the inside.

He wasn’t a friend, and so we seldom conversed. Though we sat in close proximity to one another, we didn’t work on the same projects, and so both os us were happy not forcing small talk.

But I knew him and he knew me.

He’d spend his day making phone calls to customers while I spend my day hunched over my keyboard writing to customers. Our work lives pivoted on the same matters, even though our paths never crossed.

Sometimes, when he’d pick up a call, I’d pick up my headphones because I wouldn’t want to get distracted by his whimsical narratives to people halfway across the world. Despite that though, I’ve observed him.

I know his routine: He reaches the office at 10 but comes to his place at around 10.15 clutching a cup of coffee, he skips breakfast and grabs an early lunch so that he wouldn’t miss much of his shift time, and as the clock strikes eight in the evening he gathers his things ready to leave. He’d then commute an hour to reach home.

I know all of this because I’ve seen him at it—every day for months together. I’ve had no reason to strike up a conversation, but he was an active part of my routine, too. Perhaps that’s why I went blank when I heard he was dying. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t write to customers without him nearby, chatting with customers.

I’m not grieving his loss — why would I grieve someone I didn’t even know? And yet, ever since I heard the news, abstracts of his conversations with others keep ringing in my ear. He hated artificial sugar — he once explained to new recruits in our team that they shouldn’t ever add sugar to their coffee. He vouched for natural sweetness, mocking those who claimed refined sugar is, indeed, refined. And I’ve seen him smile and decline when people offered chocolate—and yet, he’d always bring candy for his friends from his trips abroad.

Sitting at my desk, I wondered why my mind wouldn’t drift away from this man I knew so well, yet knew nothing about. Memories flooded one after the other as I thought of a distant afternoon when we sat in a meeting proofreading a slide show presentation for a common friend. We both discussed — debated — the use of American spelling over the more rightful British spelling. We both preferred the British version, but when I suggested we use American, which is more familiar to our audience, he shrugged in a casual way. He just couldn’t accept “z” in the stead of “s”.

It’s the little things that linger the longest. I didn’t have to talk to him for hours over a coffee to understand his tastes, I didn’t have to spend time and money outside of work to get to know him. I can still picture his almost-always black shirt, his swaying walk and the skip in his step, the whisper of a song on his lips. I didn’t have to be his friend for his death to impact me.

For me he was one of five-thousand colleagues, one of fifty team members, one of twenty cubicle mates. People die all the time; he’s no different. Except that this time, I felt it a little closer than I had expected.