Just about everything!

Realisations Before Regrets

While staying abroad and on my own has taught me a lot of things, one of the most precious lessons I got was that one shouldn't take anyone's existence, love and care for granted.Before moving to France I was this emotionally detached person. I did not care much if my relations with others were going through a rough patch or if they were even breaking. I never took extra efforts to express my love for the people who were close to me. But solitude can teach you so much more than one can imagine!

Don't get me wrong! I love my own company a lot and staying alone definitely was a great, fun experience. It is just that living alone, far away from your people makes you realise how important they really are to you.

The person I missed the most was my aai.

Mothers do so much for us, it is not only immeasurable but also priceless. At least I used to behave as if it was my aai's duty to take care of me, to cook for me and be that solid rock for me whenever I was down.

I realised after 21 years of my life that she is not really bound to do all that. There is no such thing as motherly duties. It is her love which makes her do things for me and if I couldn't reciprocate, at the very least, I needed to value it.

Although I was happy to return to India, back to my family, I was scared that I would be constantly fighting with my aai like before. We used to fight mainly because she always thought that I wasn't respecting her rules and I used to think that she was an OCD freak who wanted to turn me into one too!

While I was in France, for three long years I was the empress of my 9 metre square hostel room and my life in general. It all ran according to my will. I took shower at night, did not have separate utensils for vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes (I anyway did not possess that number of utensils but still), occasionally walked in my room with my outdoor shoes on, cleaned my room once in a week, cleaned my toilets and shower area once in a month instead of doing a little bit of it everyday before shower, ate meals, munched on snacks while sitting on the bed.. I had set my own rules and I was so happy with it!

But I knew that when I got back to India, since I was to stay with my parents, I had to respect my aai's rules. Simply because that was her kingdom, had been for the past 25 years! I was actually worried that everything that I had been feeling for my aai would vanish soon enough since we would probably be back to square one. Arguing because of constant difference of opinions, difference in way of living.

I shared my feelings with a close friend of mine before I flew back and what she told me made so much sense!! She said, "Living alone is very easy. Your real test is when you succeed in nurturing your relations with your people while staying under one roof."

My last months in France were spent thinking about a lot of things. There wasn't much to do and when you are in such a situation, you tend to say hello to seemingly random, unexpected thoughts. One even goes through self realisations, I think (I sure was hit by a lot of them!).

One such realisation was that I needed to make the most of my ajoba's existence.

My maternal grandpa is my only immediate grand parent alive and his is the last generation who has lived in the British India. My ajoba has always loved to tell stories. Lengthy stories, to be precise. He is very typical in that sense.