Monday, March 12, 2007

What?!...Me Worry....

I want to write. So I will.

So, had a heart to heart with the folks this past weekend. Some shit went down but basically, I see them making the same mistake with my sister as they did with me.
Growing up, it went like this:
Mum: So Z, who are you dating now?
Me: ….
Dad: No no, nonono, he shouldn’t date anyone right now, this is no time to get serious about anyone
Me: (thinking oh dear, so I can’t tell them about Ex…crap…
…I do want to tell them because I really don’t think theirs is anything wrong with it and I do like her and it would be nice if I could get her over and everything be hunky dory.

Anyway, no use harping on that, point is my sister has been dating this guy for a year now and the moment she found out my parents knew, she called up (1am, my time, Wednesday night, perfect) saying mum & dad would kill her.
So the deal is, I always held it against them that they were too quick to label something as bad. Now, it …I knew they were wrong. It was one of those moments that make you grow up – realizing your folks are wrong and while they may have the best interests out for you, there are some things you just have to do.

My mother did surprise me, “Well, see Z, if I had told you then that I knew you and Ex wouldn’t work out”
Me: “I know mum, and if you had said that then, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it was something I had to go through. You can try and hope I won’t get hurt and make mistakes, but without them, I wouldn’t be me. So yeah, it had to happen”

Anyway, in the past few months I have made a conscious effort to open up to them.

My Dad lived in a joint family, went to Scindia School and has an old school approach to life, right and wrong, values and the rest of the gambit. Of course, there seem to be a lot more grey areas than what he let on when I was growing up. Another thing was that I left home at 17 so all that growing up between now and than was done away form them. Which is why it’s hard to go to them for a talk. But my sister is at home and I hope it doesn’t end up the case that she grown up and my parents have no idea of who she really is (okay fine, they are parents, they will always know who she is but still, I mean the capacity for them to have an easy and open dialogue”

Of course, my father made me feel old:
“You see, your sister and you are different. You matured early, perhaps too early. I knew you wouldn’t make big mistakes and that’s why I ignored the smaller ones…like the times I found those cigarettes in your bag in um, when was it, class VIII or IX”
“No Dad, it was 2nd year college”
But that wasn’t the point…it’s nice my parents felt I was mature enough to deal with crap but some of the stuff, I don’t think I was ready.

In any case, they asked me in all seriousness if they wanted me to look for a girl…I’m like, what, for? I mean, look for a girl for me to do what?
Get married of course.

Meh?? Meeeee? But I’m still only 17….oh wait.

Crap, when the hell did I grow up?

And looking around, I suddenly see spurts of growed-up-ness in all my friends. Ash who is meeting guys through her mum, courier service. SB who for the first time of ever knowing her, said she was confused and needed to focus on her personal life and said she had tears in her eyes…Jeezuz H. Christ, what’s going on….

I need to go to the gym.
(see! As soon as I said gym, the Homer Simpsons clip came into my head:
Homer: Guy’m? What’s a guy’m?
(he looks over and sees people working out)
Homer: Oh!! A guy’m!!
Come on, really? Aren’t I too much of a delinquent moron to ever get married?
Oh fudge

(Fuck! I say things like oh fudge, grown ups don’t do that!)

Balls

And you know what, talk to me a while from now, odds are, i would have reconciled my immature tendencies with being grown up and will go dancing to domesticity. Go figure
But still, I feel badly for the poor girl I convince I am mature enough to get hitched too…coz a part of me will always be a bit nuts

3 comments:

hedonistic hobo said...

parents.....sigh.
my parents managed to make the same mistakes with my brother while he was away as they did with me while i was right there. and those mistakes have been good in some sense. my brother and i grew up together and apart from them. but we grew up either way without making any colossal mistakes. and now we've come to a point where our parents may have opinions but they can voice them to the khaki chaddi brigades. is it the healthy way? nope. but it works for all of us. every indian middle class family lives in denial. no make that just about every family lives in the bliss spun by ignorance.

hedonistic hobo said...

what i'm saying is your sister just needs to be smarter about the choices she makes and more guarded about her personal space. it sounds awful and it isn't what you're fighting for but i can assure you you parents are not gonna change.

Zaphod said...

Well, see the post I wrote after this one.

My point is, while I can expect them to make the same um, 'mistakes' (?) they did with me, I hope they aren't as severe in the repercussions.

I also hope that while they don't tell my sister what to do, they do guide her to make wiser decisions when faced with them.

I can't hope to change them, but I can still hope things turn out differently as they did with their First Offspring