#15: The Independence Day
However tempting the title may be at suggesting my life is at peace now, it painfully isnāt. I donāt want this to prevent me from glorifying the decades of freedom from colonization we have enjoyed, how much we have recovered from post-colonization trauma, and how we are more responsibly planning to evolve in future. Lots of love to my country. I love my dear Bihar, I love India. I am grateful to my parentland for everything it gave me, such as the beautiful cultural heritage and the opportunity to identify myself as a proud Indian. š®š³ I give my heartfelt pranaam to my nation.
Why is it always such that I make a post, disappear for months (or years), and then make a sudden reappearance? I love writing. Why this discontinuity? I asked myself this question.
I realized it is because I am always too overwhelmed by my past and future to express my present without hurting myself. And donāt expect me to mourn that; It is part of my situational awareness, learning from my experience, and practical preparedness and Iām not ashamed.
Iām not proud either, but thereās little I can do to change the circumstances Iām put in. The very reason behind my continuous complaining and being a crybaby is because thatās what has happened to me throughout my life, and continues to. There are plenty of people to blame, but definitely not me.
I will start talking about the time after the day I posted that Kharagpur blog, but I will move in a logarithmic fashion i. e. Increasing the amount of focus on the part closer to the plateau (present) rather than the cliff (past).
Do you use olive oil at home? Is it a common ingredient in most of the food that you have at home? I recently learnt an interesting truth about food oils. Mustard oil, olive oil, and refined oil are the 3 major oils used to cook. In my family everything is cooked in mustard oil. I used to watch recipe videos and wonder why the colour of the oil looked so different. Turns out they generally use olive oil.
Based on what mom told, mustard oil is much more fatty and considered not good for health, at least in comparison to olive oil. That being said, mustard oil comes for a lot cheaper than olive oil. So do we use less healthy oil to cook food for saving money? Yes. Are we the only ones? I really donāt know.
As much as I donāt want to, I pity myself. Itās pathetic, but every time I pity myself, I assume it canāt get worse. But it does. It very much does.
5-6 days ago, my parents had a very violent fight. I was there to get them to settle, and since my classes were not going on, I could give more time to home. Despite my struggle to get both my parents to be peaceful, they kept saying things to each-other for half the night, and kept hurting themselves, mentally and physically. I was there to help them, but they werenāt welcoming to any support. And I understand why. They must feel like they are put into a position where they canāt express themselves to anyone, and that nobody can feel what they are going through.
Folks and friends tell me not to get in between when they fight. I wouldn'tā¦ If only it remained verbal. But it gets worse. It gets physical, in a manner that they end up hurting their internal and external biologies causing more than just short-term damage. I barely manage to save the day everytimeā¦ Because I love them. I donāt want to listen to my friends. My parents are my everything. Losing one of them means losing half of my lifeās purpose. Iām nothing without them, no matter how they are.
And I managed to calm them down. 3 days ago, we woke up to a news that wasnāt initially so devastating: The water motor wasnāt working. It had been a common problem, I easily assumed it will be fixed soon. We got it checked, had some analysis done, some parts bought. By evening, it was still being worked on, and that made the situation tense. The day ended with the news that the plumbers will come the next day and attempt a better fix, something they referred to as āslizingā (I think it supposed to be slicing). I didnāt eat much that day, for reasons. Others ate less too.
So we got the āslizerā expert the next day. The whole day was going to be a wasted struggle again, and what happened at home made it far worse. The lack of food, hydration, and sanitation made our patience and moods worse. My parents had an argument, and once the light was sparked, it ended up being probably the worst fight they have ever had in the whole lifetime. One where they almost hit each-other. I came in between as a shield and got beaten up instead, gladly so. But will I always be able to get in between?
The situational dilemma hit me harder than the physical strokes. I was pulled down deep into the realization of how traumatizing the past 5 years have been for my parents. From being loving, caring, and supportive, theyāve become beasts. They have turned into people with no emotional control, and mood-swing patterns that encourages self-harm exclusive to interpersonal fights between those two.
As much as they fight, scream, misbehave, and misunderstand each-other while arguing, they are the only 2 adults I could ever rely on. The rest of my ostensible family has been far more hostile to us, in a much more heart-penetrating way than physically. Who else can I look up to? And even if I had anybody else to look up to, my parents are the 2 people I will never let go of. It is my lifeās purpose to see them happy, and I wonāt let anything go wrong before that happens.
Their hatred for each-other while fighting is no longer silenced by their want to live, and their heart no longer melts by the thought of their kidsā happiness. They arenāt able to think straight during a fight. What would a person in this condition be advised to do? Take therapy, I suppose. We canāt afford that. Will the one who advises us pay for our therapy? Iām sure not.
Money is the one big thing in our life thatās our biggest joy and harshest pain at the same time. If we had more money, none of our current problems in life would remain relevant. We will be able to cure everything, including our financial instability and mental illnesses. We will be off to a happy life, constantly evolving. If only we had more money. If onlyā¦
Let me slap myself out of this dream. It isnāt here yet. A minimum of 2 years before I even get on my feet are to be borne with patience andā¦ Struggle. No, my parents have to remain together, no matter what. The hardwork they did for their whole life, wonāt lose meaning so easily. Weāre close, and we will make it. I will get a good job and change everything. I will be able to fix us. I will do itā¦ Wonāt I?
I wasnāt able to cry, because I hadnāt had water for 50+ hours. My parents eventually lost energy and got diverted by updates from the plumbers and the expert. It failed. They didnāt even attempt the āslizingā part. Maybe next day.
Day 3. No eating, drinking, peeing, or excreting. We felt like lifeless blobs, and it was harder for us to make it through, considering my mom has an OCD. Although we were convinced that the service folks were fixing the water issue, we also knew the kind of people we have in Muzaffarpur. They were using our helplessness as a measure to maximize visible worktime and increase the payment. The only thing they were aiming for is profit. No sense of wanting to provide quality service, no concern for our degrading health, nothing. They were just extending and pulling out days from our lifeless schedule.
On day 3, we slightly hinted that this would be the last day we let them work. We ensured them that if they donāt fix it by the end of the day, instead of wasting more money into something that isnāt even working, we will urgently invest into getting a submersible pump installed, the ultimate answer to all water problems in the poverty-stricken lands of India.
God knows how, by the end of the day, water started coming. We were not relieved, especially I. Not instantly. I waited for the next morning, and then, was a little calmed. After having the payment report (just because I make it sound professional doesnāt mean it was, it was an informal description of how much we have to pay and a disambiguation telling why), we realized the fixing cost us over ā¹22,000. Thatās a lot of money for a sudden life problem. And then the motor stopped working again in the evening, whereafter we asked them to have a look again. A quickfix and it started working after adding some water in the pipe.
We are firm that the next step is to get a submersible pump, but even if we put aside the financial challenge for a moment, this season isnāt the best one to get it installed. In fact, that should be our last resort, if all options are exhausted, like it would have been if day 3 ended in a disappointment too. But now we have some time to think, plan, and gather money. ā¹80,000 isnāt a small amount (thatās to start, you know itās always more than it seems).
It was the independence day. Wow, what a beautiful day. An independent country, where there are lakhs of smiles of people happy and proud of their country. And lakhs of neutrally frowned faces who donāt even know what a country is. All they know is food, water, shelter, and survival. I felt them, I can tell. It must be worse. I wish we had a little more independence too. A stable financial life, my momās OCD cured, feels like a lovely eye-tearing dream.
Hahahaā¦ I donāt know why Iām crying. Is it because of the trauma of 3 painful days? Is it the fear of my parents getting into a fight again? Is it the painful possibility that I might not get a good job because of my not-so good college or my own ineligibility? Or is it just me, a 19 year-old who doesnāt even know what to do with his life and is struggling to survive mentally, physically, biologically, academically, and socially?
For those 3 days, I was in a state of suffering. Since I didnāt eat much, I didnāt need to use the bathroom, but I would have loved to. I would have loved to satisfy my dry throat with some water. Having not drunk or eaten in days had fatigued me. If you want a feel of how long it had been, hereās a day 3 picture of an initially dark yellow arhar dal cooked on day 1:
Still, I was receiving phone calls.
Them: Hey Param! Whatās up? Can you help me with this thing?
Me: Hi, Iām sorry, I can'tā¦ Iām kind of in a problemā¦ ā¦(trying to explain my situation).
Them: That stinks! Sorry about that, dude. Take care. Oh, by the way, can you help me out with this quickly? I really need to do this.
This makes me realize how awfully tooled I have always let myself be. If it was a regular day, I would have probably let go of my busy time and helped them out, but I was in pain. I was enraged. Very angered by their stubbornness and lack of concern for my happiness, when I have always been the one who was there for them. I hung up and left my phone. I didnāt feel like touching it anymore. Life felt obsolete.
Evening, day 4, we were preparing for dadās birthday next day. Planning a surprise, we ordered a cake for him by collecting some money. We were very excited. Little did we know our happiness was about to be shatteredā¦ Thatās when the water had stopped working again. We know it got fixed later, but the intensity of the trauma in the moment embedded itself deeply into our hearts, and despite the want to be excited, we werenāt very relieved after the news that it was working again. We were constantly afraid it will stop working again.
We desperately tried to stay happy and celebrate his birthday. 12 AM, August 16, we sang happy birthday. Crying on the inside and smiling on the outside, we made ourselves believe that we ought to be happy for survival. The desperation was visible on our faces. Here are some pictures:
Now that Iām out of it (pray, the water works fine), I still donāt feel so good about it. I want to hug my parents and stay in their arms forever. I want to see them smiling and keep talking to them forever. I want to be able to forget my pain and begin a happy life with my parents someday. Other people wonāt help me achieve that, I will.
I attempted to get myself a job offer at some good companies, and the recruiters would admit that Iām worthy and eligible and all, but then conclude, āā¦but our company generally gives only on-campus opportunities.ā. I get it. Iām not in an IIT. Not privileged enough to be allowed to compete with those IITians Iām far better than. Iāll not have a chance, because theyāll never come for on-campus opportunities to my college. Bless the IITs, for theyāve now stolen a hundred options of success from me despite my hardwork.
It is the interview season. I recently had a huge spam of texts and phonecalls by my seniors, asking, requesting, and even threatening me to help them with their online coding entrances. I clarified that I find it ethically wrong, but they continued to mentally disturb me by saying stuff that they, as my elders, shouldnāt. I made a post on LinkedIn regarding that. I was so mentally tortured I couldnāt take it anymore. And guess what? The responses were equally surprising and hostile.
A good number of people supported. By āsupportedā, I donāt mean āliked the postā. Anybody would do that for free. Rather, some people appreciated my bravery and told me I did the right thing. On the other hand, some others simply scolded and criticized me brutally for the defamation of JUET, the possibility of JUET being blacklisted by recruiters, and making LinkedIn an unprofessional platform with my plea. What value I hath wrought from years of hardwork didnāt seem to be anything to them. Shame on them for looking down on someone they should have been supportive to. And all those cowards who enjoy the perks of the flattery of such devil elders, may they suffer the consequences. Ahh!
Life is so stupid. Why am I working so hard? Whom for? Hello? Is anybody ever going to acknowledge me? Am I ever going to get any appreciation? EVER? Why me? Why? š
The question is on me. Iāve come far enough to understand how this universe works to a much better extent than before. Will I be able to plan my future strategically and always do whatās right for me and my family? I hope I do. I hope I donāt disappoint the one person who is always there to support me: Myself.
I had once felt like I saw God, but suddenly there was no God. I looked around. Nothing. I was alone. All by myself. Nobody was there to help me achieve my dreams. I suddenly felt this urge to be so grateful for what I have, and not assume that this is the worst it can get. It could get worse, and thereās a lot I can get out of my present rather than worrying about my future. And you, dear reader, ought to be grateful for what you have, too.
I sincerely take my leave now. ā¤ļø
Lots of love,
Param Siddharth.
