By Jeeva P
Hi Arulmozhivarman,
There is a dialogue in Parthiban Kanavu, Srikanth telling his mates that the largest drawback in his life has been not the truth that he was surrounded by dangerous individuals who made life tough for him, however fairly the alternative. Parthiban, performed by Srikanth was surrounded in reality by good guys whose care and nurture sadly ended up stifling his needs and ambitions for the longer term. This analogy may apply to me as effectively. I had a great father, in reality an ideal one, a thorough-going political ideologue whose information on historical past, sociological idea and politics was unparalleled a few of which percolated into his private life as effectively. He had clear and really explicit views about a variety of issues a few of which have been to a fault, inflexible and prejudiced however I assumed it was higher to be unbending about sure issues quite than being ignorant and wavering on a regular basis.
It was an ideal reward to have a father like this. Even until now, I can’t write an essay the place I can fully put off his affect or handle to eschew a reference to one in every of his quotes or remarks. He all the time thought he was an under-achiever regardless of reaching the place of a Gazetted officer serving within the Union Government.
On the opposite hand, your father was a totally totally different individual from him and in a great way. When you advised me as soon as that your father had found a love letter you had written for some woman throughout your tenth customary and he didn’t mutter a phrase to you about that till you reached faculty, I used to be shocked. He had seen issues most likely out of your standpoint, understood how delicate and excitable adolescence actually is and had waited for a sure second whenever you needed to stay by yourself, whenever you needed to go away home to turn out to be a hosteller and had then determined to broach that matter. The recommendation that he gave you I don’t bear in mind precisely however I’m certain my father wouldn’t have handled me the identical manner, that too once I was in greater secondary had I indulged in a shenanigan like that.
My father’s look after his solely son from childhood which was heat, protecting and reassuring until some extent began turning into oppressive, paranoid and suffocating once I reached adolescence. My father had lived a way more ‘celibate’ life throughout his teenagers and he wouldn’t have countenanced the prospect of his son falling for a woman as early as that age. This lack of ability or acutely aware refusal of his to have a look at issues from one other individual’s perspective began disturbing me solely in my teenagers. For instance, whereas getting ready for the board exams having been troubled by a variety of dizzying theorems and derivations and diagrams in a number of topics, having been a language aficionado proper from my childhood, most of my solo studying classes have been peppered with a variety of tiny energy naps and each time I had determined to present in to my soporific impulses, I’m certain a few of my father’s DNA that I had inherited someway would have despatched immediate indicators to him. I might sense him instantly in my neighborhood and earlier than I may even handle to react, he would have succeeded in slapping the again of my head. He reportedly was somebody who by no means had the behavior of sleeping whereas studying or doing a little critical work and he anticipated the identical not solely from me but in addition from a lot of his workplace subordinates too. I had defined to him a number of occasions that energy naps have been one thing that everybody takes particularly when they’re concerned in brain-related exercise however he being my father, a inflexible and a significantly unsympathetic man when it got here to research, would discover my rationalization completely ridiculous and brush it away with out giving it a thought.
But this man I’m nonetheless shocked was the one who had divined inside seconds with out even speaking to me that I used to be immediately obsessed on the woman whose home we had visited on one outstanding Thursday in the summertime of May 2016. My mom from what I had guessed was not absolutely happy with the phrases that the woman’s father was proposing for the marriage and he or she had nearly determined to maneuver on. But it nonetheless boggles my thoughts to assume that my father stood his floor, he took my mom to a nook, satisfied her that the phrases are all okay and he would someway discover the monetary wherewithal to hold out the marriage on the phrases proposed by the woman’s household. This one second was one thing I might actually wish to maintain on to, a second the place I might have liked to even kiss his ft. Among so many ladies I had seen within the web sites or generally even in individual, the woman that I noticed that day was the one one who had actually gained me over and I might have given something to win her hand and hold her with me eternally.
See, that is what I’m making an attempt to say, for each despicable high quality this man had, he had one corresponding redeeming high quality that managed to compensate and atone for it.
Right from my childhood as you could be realizing, my solely ambition had been to develop up as rapidly as potential, attain maturity and marry a girl with at the very least above-average appears. So, I had determined to be good at precisely these issues that may assist me attain that finish on account of which regardless of my reservations with the tutorial or skilled programs I used to be requested to decide on, I had been capable of display at the very least some stage of competence in each one in every of them. I believe as my alter-ego you too had ambitions much like me. We each valued relationships so extremely even greater than careers and commodities on account of which the one associated to marriage was accorded the very best precedence. You and me, I can vouch for this, had by no means flirted with even one woman throughout our early maturity particularly if we didn’t have concepts to take that relationship to the following stage. Whenever my mates used to ask me to flirt with some woman I knew so effectively, I used to instantly shrink away from that obnoxious thought if all I used to be going to do was simply have some enjoyable with out contemplating her for a steady and a passionate, life-long companionship.
So, each as a bodily and an nearly emotional ‘celibate’, I didn’t wish to miss the chance that this woman had offered me with. Within few days, after my marriage had been fastened, I used to be shocked to seek out that she too was somebody who had waited until her marriageable age to begin writing her love story. Just think about, within the twenty-first century once we have been witnessing so many break-ups and relationships that have been ending in disasters, a lady who had waited until 25 years of age to present vent to all her secret emotions and that too a lady whose magnificence and allure was for my part, unmatched at the very least in my circle! Would I actually miss that?
And that’s exactly why I didn’t even contemplate the potential for bringing this to you and asking to your opinion, even supposing I had concerned you in nearly all of my life’s most necessary occasions. I bear in mind very effectively that you just have been offended for the primary time in our ten-year previous relationship however I actually wasn’t a lot responsible about that in any respect.
But once I take into consideration these days, I instantly am reminded of Baradwaj Rangan’s evaluate of Rockstar starring Ranbir Kapoor. Let me paraphrase him right here –‘Rockstar is a sprawling ode to the cliché that we should be careful what we ask the gods for, for they may actually grant us our wish. In other words, the only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want’. Not many individuals will perceive the importance of this line. That is why Imitiaz Ali and Baradwaj Rangan stay so near our singular and so peculiarly woven consciousness-es.
Just per week earlier than my wedding ceremony was fastened, I had been venting my frustration to you about not with the ability to discover a correct match for myself amongst so many eligible candidates. I used to be in reality telling you this ‘What if I get married to a girl whom I don’t like in any respect? Wouldn’t all the pieces that I had accomplished in the direction of this – hours and hours of back-breaking efforts to clear and do effectively in board exams proper from my teenagers, burning the midnight oil nearly throughout each semester to clear greater than fifty papers in my engineering course and eventually these six months of excruciating coaching at Infosys Mysore- go down the drain? Why ought to I’ve remained so disciplined not solely in teachers but in addition in my private entrance as effectively to get rewarded with a nasty marriage lastly? I may have flirted with a variety of women each in faculty in addition to at work and ended up marrying a girl whom I may by no means actually fall in love with however that may have been far more worthwhile at the very least, proper? Why ought to I’ve remained caught to my father’s rulebook with a lot self-discipline and belief if all I used to be going to get on the finish of the day was a wedding that was going to learn neither me nor the woman concerned? Was my total life all these years going to finish up as a joke?’
But you replied calmly that there have been nonetheless a variety of choices and I may nonetheless be capable to discover a woman whom I’d like. For a second or so, my scepticism vanished and I requested you again, ‘Are you sure? Do you really think that at the end of this long-winding ordeal of finding a match for myself, my life would really turn out to be what I had it wanted to be? Machi, see so far, we haven’t been capable of obtain even one good factor that we’ve badly aspired for! Not a great course that may have benefited our abilities in language, not good marks within the engineering course that we have been thrust into regardless of being absolutely eligible for such an eventuality, not a great faculty that may have made us higher and assured people! Everything that we had aspired for in our lives has all the time remained so distant and unattainable for us! Do you actually assume that God would compensate for all of that by giving me somebody intently resembling the hazy definition of my dream woman? Do you continue to assume that my future would transform pleased and shiny?’
You didn’t discuss for a second however later ending the deep pause, you mentioned, ‘Getting what you want and living happily are entirely two different things. If God wants to punish you, there are plenty of ways to do that. He can punish you by not giving what you badly want. That is a very usual and a predictable outcome. But that need not be the norm. He can sometimes even give everything that you had wanted and still be able to make you unhappy! You get my point? You can be fortunate enough to get everything that you had badly wanted all your life and still be cursed enough to not be able to enjoy any of them!’
Almost one 12 months after you had uttered this prophecy, my future, our Master was working extra time to show each single line of that. I used to be getting a variety of stress at my office on account of badly deliberate and shoddily managed tasks. My father having accomplished his thirty-eight-year-old authorities service and regardless of retiring with near 4 million rupees as ultimate settlement, a dream come true for him, had began having points associated to sleep. Within months, he was exhibiting indicators not solely of insomnia but in addition of psychological degeneration and paranoia.
My spouse gave delivery to a good looking child within the subsequent three months. The exact same night time I obtained a name from workplace. ‘I am not removing you from this project only because you have a new family with a new-born kid.’, this was my supervisor. Issues had escalated at workplace for none of my fault and this was the primary time in my total profession I used to be being spoken to with a lot derision and contempt.
Every single day once I used to get up alongside my darling spouse and child, the very first thing I needed to encounter was my father who was exhibiting clear and unmissable indicators that he was steadily shedding his thoughts. A ten-minute dialog with him would achieve sapping nearly all of my power to go and carry out at work. I might begin to workplace inside minutes and shortly after reaching there, I must see and ignore faces that didn’t actually need me there. I used to be being handled like how upper-caste individuals would have handled untouchables within the bygone period. Almost each pore of their our bodies would ooze condescension for me. There have been loads of evenings once I would keep at workplace inside unused convention rooms with my laptop computer making an attempt to keep away from the gazes of my superiors. Despite that, I might nonetheless select to depart workplace late at nights to keep away from having any dialog with my steadily ‘unravelling’ father at house.
Now simply take a look at the saddest a part of this; my childhood was spent alone that means I didn’t have siblings although it was a fairly pleasurable one, I admit, however from then on, proper from adolescence until effectively unto maturity, my life may very well be labelled as one thing like a largely ‘unfulfilled’ one. Unfulfilled within the sense, from tenth customary I wasn’t capable of get good grades, a narrative that held good even throughout my faculty, even when I absolutely deserved them. If you bear in mind appropriately, my efficiency within the tenth board exams was an distinctive one, a truth effectively attested to by my faculty principal who was astonished when all I ended up getting was someplace lower than ninety %. My faculty had the behavior of sticking wall posters of college toppers everywhere in the suburb until that 12 months however for my batch alone they determined to put off that observe, the reason is, the varsity topper, me didn’t even cross the same old, naked minimal of ninety % to be honored like that. Just think about, how would it not have been had I crossed the ninety % mark and my bespectacled, sadly sullen image had ended up adorning the partitions of each road in Chromepet! It merely didn’t occur for causes I’m nonetheless unaware of and it was the primary time I used to be getting a cling of what was to return within the later years of my life.
From then on, the story of my teachers was a case of diminishing returns- the extra I used to toil on the research desk, the extra my marks used to dip and after some extent Jeeva, as soon as throughout his childhood tagged as ‘a gifted child’ by his first-standard Mahalakshmi miss was simply getting boxed into the inconspicuous,common class by his academics. See the entire level is this- my life was absolutely constructed round teachers and my abilities at sport or another sport like cricket for which I had developed a secret style, didn’t matter in any respect to anybody. Any pitfall in my tutorial efficiency was scrutinized with an unforgiving eye by my father and that mirrored again in my consciousness as effectively. I used to be presupposed to be sad each time I had misplaced the primary rank to my faculty or faculty competitor and a second-rankerdespite being a single-child as me, was not entitled to any profit at house – a five-minute comedy observe within the Adhitya TV or a go to to the theatre with my mates for my favorite Vikram film.
To sum up, simply think about how dry or vacuous a life like that may have been for somebody as delicate as me. Whenever my mates used to get cash from their mother and father for a go to to the close by web centre- the place they did all the pieces starting from video-gaming, drooling at faceless ladies on Chatrooms to watching hours and hours of addictive porn, I used to be taught to have a look at them with both derision or sympathy from the home windows of my musty research room- ‘Oh !these guys are going to spoil their lives indulging in frivolities such as these funded by their very own parents and are going to end up becoming hopeless brats with no proper future ahead of them! Pathetic!’
Whenever I used to really feel the pinch of shedding every day, my childhood to research and extreme private self-discipline, there was just one voice that used to consolation me- ‘Jeeva, these difficult years are only very temporal. Just look at your cousin, he studied well with discipline, cleared exams with fortitude, settled himself at IBM and married a beautiful woman and got settled at Bangalore! The same is going to happen for you! Just grit your teeth for some more days and you soon will reach your destination’. So that was how the entire of my pre-marital life was written- round textbooks, query papers and generally newspapers. So, on the age of 27, when my wedding ceremony was fastened with one of the stunning ladies I had seen until then, it felt very very like an achievement, one thing for which I used to be absolutely eligible for, or like a coronation on the finish of a fourteen-year exile similar to how Ramya Krishnan describes in Padayappa.
Machi, how would you’ve gotten felt had you been in my place? You are in the beginning of your journey advised that the stroll throughout the desert wouldn’t final for a couple of hour. Later, much like what we noticed in that Karthi cop film, the length of the journey is prolonged by two extra hours and by the tip of the day, you understand that your journey goes to finish solely after one other two extra days. But you trudge on, as a result of you’ve gotten been advised that on the opposite aspect of the arid desert lies a spot resembling the cool, snowy peaks of the Alps, the place a complicated bungalow has been ready to your relaxation, your favorite meat dishes have been cooked by the best cooks within the nation and delightful and professional masseurs are ready to give you the much-needed reduction that your physique goes to demand on the finish of your scorching journey.
But on the finish of the journey, you understand that there’s in fact a bungalow that’s ready for you however sadly it’s not positioned on the foothills of the Alps. Of course, it seems that the desert is over and your bungalow is positioned on some lonely, unremarkable road. You step contained in the bungalow with a disillusionment that the entire Alps story was a pretend one however since you might be somebody who could be very a lot used to deceptions and disappointments resembling these, you determine to disregard it and march contained in the large, excessive ceilinged corridor with tempered expectations. Just if you find yourself ready for at the very least a glass of water and a small chair to sit down and unload your baggage, the door on the entrance closes by itself and also you flip again to see that the darkening bungalow is quick getting full of ghosts and ghouls and spirits!
That is how the story of my life until now has been. I used to be advised in the beginning of my adolescence to take a position each ounce of my sweat, power and perseverance in the direction of clearing the board exams in order that the school years move by like a soothing whiff of air. But I used to be requested to select EEE as my topic in engineering and my mother and father requested me to work exhausting a bit extra, for simply 4 extra years because it was essentially the most tough amongst all engineering disciplines. But Jeeva was an obedient and an unsuspecting child who had no qualms in following his mother and father’ phrases. But the one factor he didn’t know was that on the finish of his penance, he was not going to be given a boon, however a curse as a substitute, one thing like a sentence from a courtroom of regulation condemning him to serve at a Siberian gulag!
See my intention is to not report this as a sob story even when it truly is one. There would have been no purpose for me to put in writing these letters to you had issues cleared up on their very own after a while. Alright, I had a really insipid adolescence and a troublesome maturity and simply once I thought I used to be going to achieve my late twenties, an age for which I had waited for greater than twenty years, the supposed ‘peak’ of my life, a variety of issues which I had taken as a right had began falling aside and I needed to provide you with superhuman powers and extra-ordinary braveness to set them proper! My father’s madness and my skilled disaster, each these battles needed to be fought on the similar time similar to how Hitler fought Soviet Union on one entrance and the United States on the opposite. But, aren’t there individuals going through even more durable lives? Haven’t we seen poor individuals or 1000’s of hard-working migrant people dwelling underneath bus shelters or the bridges they’re setting up within the metropolis even throughout relentless rains and scorching warmth? Why am I making a fuss of my say, first-world issues?
But this can be a query I’ll by no means be capable to reply satisfactorily. But that’s what motivation audio system and apostles of spirituality in YouTube ask me to determine. When my home is burning, they ask me to be grateful that I actually didn’t get caught within the fireplace and when my legs are bleeding, they need me to be pleased that at the very least I’ve arms with which I can crawl and canopy distances!
When it’s pure for me to match myself with my friends resembling Vigneshes and Vinodhs to guage how good or screwed up my life actually is, individuals say that I ought to examine myself with tens and lots of of frail, younger males who line up the pavements of OMR distributing pamphlets that goad us into acquiring loans, bank cards and advertising affords that we don’t actually need!
At the tip of so many tiring classes throughout which I needed to discuss for hours on finish to maintain my already damaged father from crumbling fully, one foggy morning, he agreed to accompany me for a go to to a psychiatrist. It felt like an outstanding achievement for me to have satisfied him that he had a ‘mental’ subject which was much like a niggle that we generally have within the knee or the elbow, and {that a} psychiatrist may be capable to repair it inside no time. There was just one assure that he wanted from me which he requested by holding each of my arms, ‘Jeeva, even if I don’t get absolutely effectively, please guarantee me that my scenario gained’t worsen from what it’s proper now!’. I held his shoulders and gave him a smiling nod, ‘Trust me, dad! I am there for you’.
Within six months, you noticed my father throughout a marriage reception and requested me in a chillingly eerie tone, ‘Dei what is happening to your father? I haven’t seen him like this earlier than’. In one other couple of months, I used to be condemned to rummage by way of the web with key phrases and phrases resembling, ‘antipsychotics and parkinsonism’, ‘how to get rid of drug-induced parkinsonism’, and many others.
One Sunday afternoon once I was neck-deep inside one such web search, a determine approached me and blurted the next, largely indecipherable phrases with saliva dripping by way of jaws that gained’t cease jerking as soon as each two seconds, ‘Why am I not able to stop my jaw movement, Jeeva? And for the last two months, my limbs have become so rigid and my palms are distorted like a piece of crumpled paper. Should we check with the psychiatrist once again?’
***
See, the entire of my life until the age of 27 proper from adolescence had been designed like the next: I might put in a lot efforts in faculty and work, nearly twice the quantity invested by others and I might find yourself simply getting the ‘pass-mark’. I might know deep down that I deserve higher issues however I needed to resign myself to the barest minimal that my life used to present me again. I deserved to get positioned in TCS, the primary firm to go to our campus, however I used to be rejected within the final spherical for completely no purpose. It would possibly sound like an exaggeration to others, however the rejection felt like a ton of bricks touchdown on my head could also be as a result of I had anticipated a lot from that interview which I did tremendously effectively. That ‘excitement’ of getting positioned, of realizing a long-term dream or the very goal of life, was there solely once I was attending TCS, one of many largest firms in India and my entire household was badly ready for the end result. But none may clarify why I had failed and regardless of being my alter-ego, you had someway been employed. I bear in mind fairly effectively that you just couldn’t benefit from the second absolutely solely as a result of I had not cleared it.
But the following week, when Infosys visited our faculty, I merely couldn’t perceive why that ‘excitement’ had vanished from inside me. I cleared it with flying colors and the Infosys interview was more durable than that of TCS and with the provide in my hand, I ought to have ideally felt happier. But I nonetheless don’t know why I couldn’t. It was like what we noticed in VTV, ‘the moment has gone, Karthik’. I’m not saying that I used to be not pleased in any respect however that feeling of ecstasy or jubilation wasn’t merely there. In Vellithirai, Prithviraj would get the information of him getting a suggestion from a producer by way of a telephone name after years and years of wrestle. Similarly, the second the information was damaged to me that I had been positioned in Infosys ought to have felt like a ‘kadavulaikandakanam’ from AleAle music in Boys. But it didn’t really feel like that and I used to be like a peaceful and serene Prithviraj, ‘I got my film, Mustafa. Certain great and rare things happen so easily without a fuss, Mustafa, it is just that we gotta dedicate years and years of our lives to making them happen’. To put it merely, I used to be happy and to an extent even pleased however I actually was not on cloud-nine.
There was additionally the truth that I needed to endure a totally draining six-month coaching at Mysore to only get my job confirmed, which made the Infosys provide not as salivating because it was made out to be. And simply recollect the rigours I had confronted there. Had I devoted a lot power like I did at Mysore to another ‘valuable’ course, disciplined myself like that in an institute at Delhi, I may probably have cleared even the Civil Services Examination. When I accomplished the coaching in December that 12 months, it felt like how Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman would have felt on the finish of Day 4 within the Kolkata Test, 2001. I used to be exhausted each bodily and mentally. Dravid and Laxman have been capable of mount a profitable defence in opposition to the formidable Australians they usually obtained a lot accolades, fame and glory on account of that. What did I obtain in return? A letter confirming my mere appointment as a Software Engineer, a letter that individuals working in different firms obtained inside two months of quite simple and fundamental software program coaching with out stress and threats of expulsion in case of failure. You knew fairly effectively that you just have been getting paid nearly thirty % greater than me within the subsequent three years at TCS and all my back-breaking efforts and transformation was solely to star in a totally unworthy movie like Shankar’s I.
So, that is what I had talked about in one of many earlier paragraphs, my life until 27 was a largely ‘unfulfilled’ one. Despite being absolutely deserving of bigger rewards and achievements, I used to be compelled to languish within the common class for greater than fifteen years and the story continued within the office as effectively nearly until my marriage. So, the philosophy or the design of my life till then was like this – ‘Work like a bull, race like a horse, fight like a lion and at the end of the day, feel abundantly happy that you at least have a job!’. But inside just a few years, I used to be to a really nice extent, getting used to this. I finished anticipating a lot from life even when I hadn’t stopped exerting myself. I used to be working for my satisfaction alone and life’s rewards have been all turning into very secondary to me.
But then, my marriage occurred hastily and the entire philosophy of my life modified. By giving Lavanya to me, it felt like our Master, the future had corrected all of the errors it had dedicated till then. All these moments and days the place I used to really feel dangerous for remaining an under-achiever, all these days the place I couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t being handled pretty by future, all these days of brewing jealousy over others and eventual, helpless resignation- all the pieces appeared to make sense abruptly. When I noticed Lavanya, I felt like, ‘God, you could have told me this fifteen years back and I would have endured all these burdens with alacrity, calm and resilience!’
But inside months of my marriage, the re-orientation of the philosophy or the design of my life from one place to a drastically totally different one grew to become obvious. My issues at workplace and my father’s insanity- each had began working in live performance to wreck my psychological well-being as effectively. After the delivery of my son, issues at workplace worsened and I used to be pushed to the brink. When I used to be about to lose my job, by one Divine Act of rescue, I used to be capable of get one other one with a significantly better pay in a superior place. In the brand new group, even supposing it was far more pleasant and much much less poisonous, the scars I had endured in my earlier group continued to hang-out me and my thoughts was solely worsening. But what occurred to my father within the subsequent few days hit the ultimate nail within the coffin into which the mutilated physique of my psychological well being was gasping for breath.
I bear in mind seeing an previous man with a shuffling gait and a jerky jaw in a movie referred to as Nibunan which had Arjun getting affected by the Parkinsons’ illness. Seeing that previous man in 2017, I abruptly felt grateful that none in my household had an affliction like that. Only in 2019, I understood that our Master, the future had a unusual, sadistic sense of humour that would mock even individuals’s emotions of gratitude.
‘You should have come to me earlier, Jeeva. Your father has Parkinsons’ now. It will not be solely irreversible but in addition progressive that means it would solely worsen with time’, this was the second psychiatrist we met the following 12 months after the primary one’s anti-psychotic treatment had pushed my father into that horrible, beforehand unheard-of, neural dysfunction.
‘But he had taken anti-psychotics for only a few months. If we stop them, he could come back normal right?’ I may really feel that I used to be getting wanting breath.
‘No, Jeeva. Your father probably had a genetic pre-disposition to Parkinsonism. Your first psychiatrist’s medicine have pushed your father over the sting. It could be very tough to see your previous father again’.
Something stored ringing in my ears once I was strolling out of the clinic that night. When I used to be strolling house, I couldn’t get these clearly pronounced phrases emanating from a singularly shrill voice out of my head,
‘Jeeva, even if I don’t get absolutely effectively, please guarantee me that my scenario gained’t worsen from what it’s proper now!’
The similar week, one early morning, I had my first panic assault.
I hope I hold writing like this to you.
Yours,
Jeeva P