The Choice

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude” – Shakespeare

(Yup, I'm selling out, like we did in the tenth standard. No essay of ours ever began without a quote for those extra marks, did it?)

I'd heard it in humour often. How a man's (as in male's) life can be so hard and more often than not, it's because of a woman. Or even more often because of more than one. I don't really know if the theme brought out this article in me or if I would've written it anyway, but man! It's so hard to be truly independent.

Independence to me right now is the freedom to make a choice without having to regret it and without having to feel guilty. That's never going to happen, is it? I mean let's face it, independence sucks. I can see two sides of it already. I was told by my good friend that he's a 'true man' and he'll never give in to a woman, never do something to please a girl if he doesn't want to do it. Dude, you're never going to get laid! Sometimes you've got to suck up to feel happy. What! Did he just say that? I can't believe he wrote that shit! Ok, maybe there aren't enough people reading this to actually make that statement and maybe it's just my guilty conscience thinking it up. But I swear to God, I derive immense pleasure out of sucking up sometimes. Mom, here let me help you with the cleaning. Dad, let me take care of this for you. Here, I'll help you with the dishes. It helps. When you've attached yourself to someone so much that you love them a lot, it really feels nice to, well, suck up to them. I'm sure you know that. You just covered it with lesser demeaning words such as ‘adapting’, ‘adjusting’, ‘doing a favour’, etc.

But at what cost? Oh my son, he's so good, he listens to all we say. He's going to marry the girl of our choice. “Oh my god! What did you say?” “Did you say ‘no’?” “Is this what we raised you for?” “Now I don't even matter to you, do I?” What did you raise me up for mom, dad? I know you're working 12 hours a day plus 2 hours of travel plus 2 hours of house work just to make a good future for me. So that I don't have to see the problems that you faced while growing up. But at what cost? When you decided you're not going to let the bad things that happened to you happen to me again, did you also made up your mind to make sure that you will let the good things that didn't happen to you happen to me as well? At what cost? Mom, are you happy with dad? Don't you think you could've done better? Don't you think if you would've hung around with him for a year, you would have got to know he wasn't right after all? Oh you did know that, didn't you? What was it mom? A loss of hope or a sudden surge of the same?

Why is it that I must be what you want me to be? Isn't that a waste of the person I am? Or indeed the person I can be? Believe me, I respect your wisdom, I know you're probably better equipped with that thing called experience to tell me what's right for me and what's not. But those were things that happened to you and to think you think they shouldn't happen to me is to be completely ignorant of the person I am. Maybe what shouldn't have happened to you will change my life if it happens to me. But with that umbrella of yours that you protect me with, I'll never feel the rain.

We kids will never appreciate the love you put into raising us. We're bastards who secretly wish you weren't around. We're so damn ignorant, we think we could so very well manage without you. We're people who want life to make us what we become when we're 30, rather than let you make us the same. We'd love you to guide us, not control us. Let us choose the path and tell us HOW to walk on it, not WHERE to walk. 'There's always time to change the road you're on'. Don't say, “See we told you that wasn't right.” I know. I heard. I remember. I wanted to check what happens when I'm not right. Are you pissed because I wasted a decent part of my life? Or only because you think that you have a right over me and that I challenged your authority? How often has it happened that you told us off for doing something you didn't like and that only strengthened our resolve to do it again? There's always a better way. Let go. It'd be an immense burden off us.

Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love -Mel Brooks
The first thing I made up in my 'not to repeat the mistakes my parents made when they raised me' book is: Not to be so in control of my children when I raise them. Never let them feel they're indebted to us, because my kids might grow up to be just as weak minded as me. They might not want to speak out, thinking it may hurt me. I'll be open. Of course, I don’t know where you hid that book of yours. I'd read it and probably be surprised to find the same entry. Maybe when I'm a father I'll realise the troubles of parenting and hate myself for writing this now. But till then, please, let go. I'm shit, the fault is my own. I could never say this to them.

“So I just go on like this
Feeding till in peace I rest
Not knowing where the goodness is
Smothered at my mother's breast.”

- Nikhil Kini
- nikhil.skinny@gmail.com