You must start looking at the silver lining
If you have a difficult relationship with your parents, this is for you.
Raw and Real Conversation
Two weeks back, I was miserable for something I had never expected.
I had had one of the best days at work. Life was going better than planned. A project that made a lot of things difficult was now coming to fruition.
Later in the day, as I spoke to my parents over the phone, my father told me he had a headache.
Now let’s be practical, we are not fools here. Who gets miserable on their father having a headache?
But the reality was that he had started having these headaches as a result of his acidity. Which is a result of lack of movement and irregular meal timings.
It honestly made me scared. I had the worst case scenarios in my mind. I even ended up crying in my meditation later that evening. (I almost never cry.)
It also made me play a “what-if” game.
What if he had taken care of his health better?
What if he lived for himself as much as he lived for everyone else?
Why does self-care feel like crime to Indian parents?
Also the other area of what-if’s:
What if he could just sit with me for 5 minutes when I was younger?
What if he for once could stop being so nostalgic and look at the present?
What if he smiled with joy because of his kids, and not out of responsibility?
What if he focused on building his wealth for himself, if not for us?
What if I failed as a daughter?
What if he failed as a father?
It was an internal battle that I hadn’t even thought I’d fight in those 2-3 days.
But it was a phase.
I decided to have a clear communication with him. That was the only way to solve it. Over the call on the third day of misery, I politely told him, “To me it looks like you are waiting for your death. You have always lived for us, do you not think you should really live for us, and not wait for this living to get over?”
I think it reinforced a belief in himself too, that we are not waiting for his death!
Gosh, the whole world could be so much better if we replaced non-communication with communication.
One of the best decisions I did was to speak with my father.
He has now started taking care of his health by bringing some changes in his lifestyle. At least he claims so :D. He now has also gotten regular with his medicine. You know, the good old nuskha where Indian parents would do anything but never get an “operation” done :)) I guess it was enough to get him to work other things out.
After that conversation, by a turn of fate I was reading Zarna Garg’s memoir, “This American Woman”. She lost her mother at 14. Her all-time angry cum frustrated father gave her the ultimatum, “Get married now or leave the house.”
She did not want to get married. She wanted to study. So she lived on the streets of Mumbai for almost two years. Taking charity from friends, relatives of friends, and everyone she could ask.
After those gruelling two years of stinking, sacrificing self respect, and at a point of running out of money, she finally gave up and returned home. Forget education, now she was 16 and getting married to a 25 year old business tycoon’s son.
All this while, her sister in the US was pushing her to come to the States. Zarna even appeared for visa interviews, only to get rejected.
As life would have it, maybe two days before her “marriage”, she got her US visa approved. She went straight to the airport, lest she could be caught.
When she made herself comfortable with her sister, brother-in-law and nephew in the US, her brother in law told her something that brought everything home for me:
"You can stay here as long as you ant. Get your degree. Get three degrees. Get ten. Study as much as you want. Take as much time as you want.”
It made me think, I might have held several things against my father in the past, but the one thing he never ever ever compromised on was education.
I think I have shared this before, but in 2007 when my eldest sister was at our home after her delivery, I had lost my study room (which was also a bed-room) to her. I was now studying in our tiny drawing room (a term only used in Indian homes), making my studies work out on the rectangular centre table.
One of those days, my father saw me crying in the drawing room when he had come home for lunch. I was crying because my massive study table had been taken away from me.
My father consoled me, hugged me, and then went off to his shop.
Apparently.
Well, it turns out, he had gone to his shop, picked up an employee from there, and went straight to get a new study table for me. In less than an hour, he was home with a new desk and a chair, perfect for study.
I can never forget what that table and chair meant for me. I was sixteen then. I went on to study on that desk for the rest of my student years, for the next seven years, till I went on to become a CA and move out to Delhi.
After reading Zarna’s memoir (and watching some of her podcasts too), I have figured that this rich, super successful, famous woman would have given an arm and a leg to have a father like mine.
A father who prioritised her daughter’s education.
And make no mistake, my father comes from a conservative family. A family that once used to worship sons and give zero impetus to a daughter. He does not have any son. We are four sisters. Still he never said no to any education we all wanted to have.
My eldest sister has a postgraduate degree as well as a Commercial Arts Diploma. My middle sister also has a postgraduate degree as well as an O’level diploma (which was hot back then). The sister just older than me is a triple post graduate.
Never said no to education.
From 2020 to mid 2023, I used to work with Ankur Warikoo, leading his entire content vertical. One of the best performing quotes of his back then (now I don’t have access to data, obviously) on all platforms was:
“If your parents are not rich, but you got a good education, be grateful for their sacrifices.”
I never understood this quote back then. My lower self would always think “But what about the times he was not present?”
Little do I realise now, that my silver lining could have become someone else’s joy of a lifetime.
We always think our parents could have done that, should have done that. I have done that too.
But if you got a good education (of course you did, otherwise you won’t be reading till here), everything else is solvable. Of course you would have to solve and it in most cases no one would understand you, I still think education opens doors for growth as well as gratitude.
Whenever I write about looking at a silver lining with your parental trauma, someone invariably says, “BUT YOU DON’T KNOW, MY GRUDGE IS BIGGER. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THERAPY I STILL HAVE TO TAKE BECAUSE OF MY PARENTS.”
I’ll leave you with two things here:
One, because I love my parents, I stay away from them. To protect the love as well as myself. Not everyone has to do that. For me, this arrangement works best.
Two, Oprah shared this line from the book “Kin” by Tayari Jones, which I want you to reflect on:
“What if we had been so carelessly raised because (our parents) were just too exhausted to dote on us. What if it turned out that it wasn’t personal after all?”
It wasn't personal, my friend. I promise. I truly wish neither of your parents have to come up with a diagnosis for you to understand this.
2 Raw One-Liners:
The most important skill is to learn how to listen to a no.
Home is where there is no phone.
3 (for) Real nice books I have been reading and re-reading lately:
Of course, This American Woman by Zarna Garg. What a story of hard work and resilience. And once you watch her podcasts too, you might conclude that life is so different from what we all project in a reel.
Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris. If you like to read shorter yet meaningful stuff, this is your go-to. I cannot even begin to tell you how much my life gets better after I randomly pick one chapter and put it back. It is costlier than the usual book prices, but absolutely worth the price. Cut your pizza and Starbucks and that H&M tee, but please get this book. I don’t say this for a lot of books, but this one has to be on your bookshelf.
Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us by Manu Joseph. It’s bizarre how so far nonfiction had only meant self-help or business books or memoirs for me. This one is none of those. I find it amusing, yet the satire is on everyone who does find it amusing. Not something I’d actively look for, but a good change I liked what this book brought up.
Alright then my friend, enjoy the weather. Fun fact: For the first time in my existence, I wore a light jacket yesterday during the Navratri’s. We might like this weather, but I think this is Mother Nature coming back at us for what we have done to it.
I wish you all stay safe, have supplies to cook your food, and are grateful for your food as well as your father :)
Nishtha Gehija
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