Tag: growing up

Yellow suitcase

On By Indu PatikkalIn Childhood memories, father, growing up, Happiness, holiday, life lessons, Random thoughts, travelLeave a comment

The big suitcases have come out of hiding. Opening them and laying them out on the floor is when the excitement begins. Before this specific act, there are people asking me, are you excited? I say a half hearted yes, to not disappoint the excitement in their voice. But, it really kicks in when the packing starts. Counting the number of days equal to the number of dresses/clothes I need. Add two for buffer. Pick out the dresses/clothes and stack them neatly. Then I see a bunch of them need to be ironed. I diligently iron them. Then the night clothes and essentials. Again equal to the number of days and two for buffer. Once the clothes are decided, then come out the pouches from hiding. Each pouch will serve a purpose. Medicines, makeup, jewelry, daily needs. Then there is the matter of footwear. I start planning footwear way before I pick my clothes. One footwear that makes sense and will go with all my clothes. A simple, comfortable pair of shoes. Somewhere after the footwear and before the clothes, comes my checklist on my phone. Randomly watching TV is when I start building the checklist. Once everything is laid out on the bed, a day or two before the departure date, all these carefully handpicked items move from my bed to the suitcase. Then it is a countdown feeling. Two days from now we will be at this place, doing this or eating this. That is when the excitement kicks in slowly.

The checklist is checked top to bottom and bottom to top, just to be sure. Everything in order, and we get to the airport. Once there, every aspect of mundane life recedes to the background. It is excitement and anticipation of the time, the boys and I will get to spend together 24×7, exploring, joking, laughing, discussing, wow-ing and taking in all the sights the place has to offer.

I guess this euphoric feeling of seeing the big suitcase coming out is something that has grown with me since I was very young. My family owned a yellow VIP suitcase. It was a hardcase, the top came down and there were metal snaps, that you pressed to shut them close. This is before suitcases had zips. What the current generation would call ‘Retro’. There were number locks, I dont remember if this particular one had a number lock. The inside covering was a golden yellow machine embroidered cloth, I think. Maybe my love for yellow started then. That suitcase coming down from the seven foot almirah meant we were going from Bangalore to Kerala for vacation. Lack of time and money stopped my family from taking vacations to new places every year. Those did happen once or twice, but vacation meant boarding the Bangalore-Kanyakumari Express from Bangalore Central Reservation on Sleeper Class tickets to Shoranur Junction. We got off there and took a bus with this yellow suitcase to my grandmother’s place. After a few weeks there, the suitcase went with us to Kannur, to my paternal grandparents place, filled with more uncles, one aunt and a handful cousins. A ‘fewer’ weeks there and then the suitcase boarded an overnight bus to Bangalore. Somewhere towards the end of maternal grandmother’s house and before the paternal grandparents house, my father joined us. My father preserved a lot of things. The original magazine covers from the 1970’s where my mother’s picture appeared on the cover. In the pile of junk I cleaned out, I found my 9th grade report card. My boys saw my marks in general knowledge and added it as a weapon in their quiver (smh). One thing I did not find, is the yellow suitcase. When I was small, the yellow suitcase seemed big. I guess now that I am big, it wont be bigger than a carry on. I dont know, I never will.

There are things in our life, objects that remain memories. We don’t have pictures that our eyes can see, but stark images in our mind, stored forever. Like the blue metal folding chairs in my house, which I don’t know how many times I must have opened and folded. The gas stove that my father bought, many many years ago, that didn’t need a lighter, the knob had ignition built in, This one I don’t have to imagine, because my father still used it until his last day. It was waiting for him in the kitchen when I went to clear out the house earlier this year. There are so many objects that we use everyday, but they slip away with time.

If there was only thing I could do in my life, that would be to travel, to every nook and corner of the world. I believe there is so much to see, so much to experience. So this time, the suitcases are out, getting filled slowly, as we jet set to the UK, checking off a place that has been on the boys and my bucket list for many many years now. The excitement, like the bubbles in a glass of champagne making their way to the surface. The suitcase is not significant looking. A dark teal colored companion I bought earlier this year to accompany me on my journey of the world. Let’s see how many places she and I will see together.

Evolution

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughtsLeave a comment

I had started earning money, still living with my friends, but I could afford a phone. Before this one of my friend had a phone, she kept my track of text messages and phone charges. We paid her for using the phone. Everyone was working hard, so I would have probably done the same, if I had a phone and let me roommates use it. On one of my visits home, I told my father, I needed to buy a phone. He took me to Burma Bazaar. We went to the basement floor and asked for mobile phone. They showed us a few models, including the Nokia 3310. It was over my budget. So I settled on a blue BPL mobile. All it could do was send/receive text messages and phone calls. This is the same place he took me like 3 years before that to buy me a Walkman – a personal audio cassette player. BPL was a trusted brand then, and Burma Bazaar was like a black market, I guess.

It was a beautiful phone, it looked different from the Nokia models. I used it to call and text my boyfriend extensively. We fought, we loved, we missed each other. The phone was a welcome relief in that long distance relationship. I used that phone till I left India in 2004. Back then, you used something till you couldn’t use it. If it broke, you tried to fix it first before replacing it. It worked till I left India. Moving to CA, my company gave me an LG flip phone. Man, that was a grand upgrade. Flipping the phone open to take a call and talk, it was classy. Flip phones changed, but remained flipped till I left US in 2012. I wasn’t given a blackberry at work, because I don’t qualify for one.

2012, in India is when I got my first smartphone. Samsung galaxy note 5, I guess. As the batteries died on me, I moved to a newer model of Samsung. I remember the Apple users poking fun at me, like using a Samsung phone made a second class citizen. In 2019, I switched to the iPhone. Today, I hold a 14Pro as I write this post.

As phones evolved my connections to people evolved. The number of people on my contact list increased. Back then there was only one group of friends, they were called “Friends”. Today as the storage capacity has increased there are groups of friends. Friends I will call anytime, friends from work, friends from the past, social media friends, favorites.. Yet one thing remains, those 5 or 10 people whom you laboriously loaded on the phone Address book back then, are somehow the same people on your favorites list today. The “go-to” people. A couple may have been added along the way, but by far the list remains the same. Some dropped along the way.

I was walking around the T-mobile store earlier today and saw a flip phone. I opened it and thought, wow! I’ve come a long way.

Family

On By Indu PatikkalIn Blessing, celebrate, Childhood memories, growing up, Happiness, life lessons, parenting, Random thoughts, realizationsLeave a comment

We are taught, right from the day we have some understanding of our surroundings, that family is your parents and your siblings. Then you have an extended family which is your aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins. For many years I believed this. Family to me was always father, mother, children. It was an etched-in-stone kind of definition.

The world as we know it as moved away from this definition. There are many women who choose to be single mothers, there are many men who choose to be single fathers. Then there is the gay community, where family is either father, father and children or mother, mother and children. Families now come in all shapes and sizes. Not every family fits into the age-old definition of father, mother and children.

I grew up in a middle class nuclear family. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, grandparents were people we interacted with during the summer vacation. My core was my father, mother, brother and paternal uncle who lived with us. This was my space in the universe. In this space, I was allowed to feel, I was allowed to talk, I was allowed to be me. If I said something out of disrespect, I was corrected. If I said something out of anger, I was given the space to calm down. If I did something wrong, I was told why it was wrong and I was given the opportunity to apologize. My family had a lot of friends and we called them family friends. These were people who lent a hand financially when my parents were struggling to pay my school fees or were short handed at the end of the month. They were there with us emotionally, by encouraging us to push a little higher and have some success in the print world. We participated whole heartedly in each others family events, marriages, death, birth, etc. I have seen more of my parents friends come to our house, have a meal of simple chapathi and curry or whatever was there, than my aunts and uncles.

My concept of family developed through these people. They were family to me, not just family friends, because they were there for us. They didn’t tell my parents that they were trying to do something impossible by trying to set up a print shop. They didn’t judge my parents and say why are you sending your children to the best and most expensive school when you know you cannot afford it. They didn’t comment on the clothes we wore, or the humble living quarters. They sat cross legged on the floor and ate what my mother served. Without asking they brought money and handed it over to my parents. I owe these people a lot and remember them fondly. Many of them have passed, but they were placed in our lives for a reason.

I am a movie buff. A few movies have left a lasting impact on me. One such movie is English Vinglish. After learning English, at the end of the movie, the protagonist defines what a family is, and those words have stuck with me. She says, ‘a family is not judgmental’. That’s precisely how I was raised. My family and everyone around my family, our support systems, never judged us. So that is my definition of a family. A group of people who do not judge you and with whom you can be you.

As I go through my divorce, I have been re-drafting my age-old family definition of father, mother, children. Now my family is mother and children. And that is okay, because for single moms, mom and children is family. My son recently asked me what is family. I told him from my experience this is what I have learnt – a group of people who don’t judge you and let you be you. He said, you took the words out of my mouth. I am glad, rather proud, that my child is not stuck to age old family definitions. That he understands, family is not judgmental.

first kiss..

On By Indu PatikkalIn celebrate, Fiction, Good reads, lifeLeave a comment

“Do you remember dear?”

“What honey?”

“Our first kiss?”

“What made you think of that?”

“Those young ones we saw at the park today..”

“They were cute, weren’t they?”

“Yes, just like us, many many years ago. How long has it been now?”

“Let’s see, it was 1952, so fifty nine years ago.”

“We were so young..”

“Yes, you were sixteen and I was eighteen.”

“You looked so handsome..”

“The white blouse you wore was spotless, with lace around the neck.. “

“Oh you remember?”

“Yes my love, I do. Like yesterday.”

“I love you darling..”

“I love you too honey…”

Choices..

On By Indu PatikkalIn Blessing, Children, growing up, learning the hard way, life lessons, mother, opinion, parenting, Random thoughts, WomanLeave a comment

As a mom, nurturing my babies has been a learning. Just as I was getting the hang of it, it was time to start cutting the cord. Yes start cutting the cord and not cut the cord because the cord is never cut. It stays intact in a virtual form for all of your children’s life. There is only thing you cannot replace and that’s your parents.

The strands starting withering away when my younger one just around ten started making choices about his clothes. He knew exactly what he wanted to wear, including his socks and innerwear. It is funny but he started developing his individuality very young, let’s leave it there.

I was talking to some colleagues yesterday, one of them is the father of two young children in their ones and fours. The other is a mom of two college graduates working in different parts of the county. Me with my middle and high schooler was somewhere in between. The lady colleague has been an inspiration for me in the context of letting go or loosening the reigns. She was telling us how there is no one shoe fits all kind of parenting. When she is asked by other parents how she does something, she says, it’s your child, figure it out.. that is absolutely true, when you start cutting the cords and which cord depends only on you and your child.

Since a few years ago, when I bring my boys to the saloon, we google for “boys hair cuts” and start browsing. They have the choice to pick their own hairstyle. To me, giving them the choice to decide how they look, whether it’s their hair or clothes or shoes helps them develop their individuality and confidence.

As my older one sits at the hairdressers chair and gets his first out of the way hairdo I sit here smiling…

The cords are going away one by one, there are more opinions he forms and decisions he makes. It won’t be too long before I take a step back and watch him pick up the baton and tread forward on his lane. From all the children I have seen and parents I have met, I realize that Parenting is an art which nobody masters. There is always something that you will not do and which is fine.. it’s okay. What is important is to let them make choices while you are around to tell them to get up when they fall. I am what I am because of all the choices my parents gave me, good or bad.

I’m learning.. each day.. it’s the toughest yet most fulfilling thing to be – a parent!

The best lesson…

On By Indu PatikkalIn Blessing, celebrate, Childhood memories, death, growing up, life, life lessons, mother, parenting, Random thoughts, realizations, WomanLeave a comment

My mom has taught me a lot of things… like every other mother does. Some she was vocal about and some by example.

1. When her mother was not well, she was there to care for her no matter what. Her selfless love towards her mother was a perfect example of how children should care for their parents in their old age. In this she taught me to be there for your parents.

2. She fought with the institution to ensure my brother got admission to Bishop Cottons. She urged the principal to reduce the admission fee, borrowed money to pay it and ensured my brother was enrolled to the school. He was 6, I was 11. She vocally taught me that it was important to be fair to your children and give them equal opportunities. What they make of it is beyond her control but as a parent it was her responsibility to be fair.

3. Every night we ate together, my father, her, brother, uncle and I. At that time it was just the norm for me. She cooked, I helped, we sat down on the floor, spoke about school or current affairs or anything and ate the meal. Now when I have a family I realize the importance of that simple act. At the end of the day the family comes together and shares their day or thoughts or whatever, but essentially what builds there is a bridge of communication. Everyone talks to everyone in the family.

4. She taught me the value of money. She told me the income and expenses and how to make ends meet. I was 12. I saw her struggle quietly at various things we never had. Money is essential, but not everything. She always said, a path will carve itself out, some door will open and a door always opened.

5. The relationships you make whether blood or not are to be kept. Blood does not make anything thicker. Having people around, you can turn to was the important thing. She respected every person who she came across, whether young or old. It was of utmost importance to treat everyone with respect.

But of all that she taught me the one I value the most is what she taught me silently when she passed, that I have no control over anything except myself. That lesson walked into my life when I most needed it. I cried after she went about the what-if possibilities, when my dad told me, that it was her time to go, and there is no point in any what-ifs.

The only thing I can control is my part of the relationship with another person, my reaction to a situation or to what another person says to me, my thoughts about a situation, my words that I choose to utter, my emotions. Everything else is not mine to claim or change. This simple but powerful truth has changed my life. And she is my teacher.

I love you Ma, Happy Mother’s Day!!