Our Parents Strongest!!!!

My buddies have been having those bumpy nights lately and somehow that has taken me back to the time when we used to come home from school really late...

At least some of you guys know how difficult its to get a bus to Aluva after 7....so I used to reach home pretty late especially when there's some upcoming event in school...mom and dad would be at the edge of their seats, watching TV, but always looking from the door bell to ring. When I look back, I can't really pin-point what to make of their parenthood.

Our parents could easily have been those careful, mindful parents who didn't let their children work with their passion even at the eve of examinations. They should have been, if you think conventionally. For there were more chances than less that we could have met with many of those sorry incidents on the long, lonely stretch. And they weren't the mobile-happy types either- 'This and call, that and call... No way! (So when my dad called, it would be a cue that he's really worried and time to move asap, which I didn't...) So what was it that made them let us be the way we were?

Someday, I am going to ask them, what made them give me the liberty they did. And how they managed to keep a tab on their anxiety on all those late nights. But for them, we would not have felt the thrill of being together, nervous, happy---feeling so completely on our own. Perhaps it was their way of throttling us with cartloads of trust. Their trick was to trust us completely, with a child-like innocence and a fanatic reverence.

Someday, I am going to tell them they have been the most fabulous people I have ever met. My parents may not exactly qualify as guiding angels, the kinds who chalk their child’s future with a neatly planned itinerary of courses, degrees and careers.

Mom consistently nagged me to work hard, but she never nagged me to be this or that. Dad, when I look back, was only concerned with my being happy. In his vocabulary, perhaps Happy = Full-stop.

I remember once when I was particularly scared before the boards, I sat with him.

“So, you think you won’t even manage to pass, is it?”
“I am not sure”
A short pause.
“Okay, never mind. Nothing matters, actually. Just stop being afraid. I hate it when you move around with that scared and sad face.”

And then, he said something some other time. From his bed where he sleeps all his time after office, shaking the right leg, my lazy, often irritating, but consistently loving and innocent father promised me late one night:

“Remember, no matter what you do and what the world says, I will always be with you till I am alive”.

At that time, though I was touched, what he said really didn’t make sense given that I hadn’t done, or didn’t even intend to do, anything outrageous. But today, I know. And it feels so good.

I can imagine the child-like glee that our parents are going to have if they happen to see this post.....

If it were not for them me, Sree & Rahul would have never been where we are now...............

a toast to their trust....
john.