The time spent with your parents, especially when you live away from the city, changes you. From the time, I moved out of Jamshedpur (back in ’07), almost everything that I was, has changed. Better or for worse, I’m a different person.
When I’m with my family, I get a glimpse of that old “me” and wonder whether I would have changed, had I lived with them? I see myself in my father and my brother, and of what I remember of my Grandfather. And yet, I don’t see myself in any of them. The pull and the Push. The confused identity of my “what-if” self.
As Abbu gets older, Alhamdulilah, I see habits of my Dada projected through him. I see myself of what my Abbu was when he was younger. The full circle.
I’d be boasting if I term this as maturity. But I’ve become more liberal on “how things should be” when it comes to my family. The realization that “I cannot control things” and I should let people be what they want to, do what they like, has sunk in. Finally!
With societal issues, we tend to be liberal, but when an idea drives close to home, it gets tricky. To push myself in adapting to this, has been a good change.
There’s a lot of ground to still cover. Humility and politeness aren’t characteristics that come inherently when we deal with family. Family is effortlessly taken for granted. We can get away with anything.
But should it be this way, always ?