Being a daughter..

Being a daughter is not easy for me. I am lazy, and quite a kind of a person who likes to live in herself.. but then.. I am one whether I like it or not.. so well..

There is a popular tag going along about being a mom and a dad.. that I thought why not about being a daughter ?

 

Ten things I love about being your  daughter ( wrt father)

1. When my dad waits up by the door for me to come home just to share something.. or may be with a cup of coffee.

2. When I was  sick and demanded ‘panipuri’ just because I had not eaten anything and I could get away with it ( Anything better than nothing. We were not allowed junk) as I was puking all day. Jaundice and all.

3. When you paid up money for the mistake I made and simply said, your time to earn will come don’t bother now. ( I was worried sick that you will beat me up)

4. For your wonderfully funny stories about people I have not met or will ever meet ( long dead). You brought them alive for us.

5. The idealism in you that you gave me as an heritage. Though I learned that you are not that perfect, but still you inpired me to be someone better 

6. For that walk down to Dadar station on your shoulders while your hands held 2 suitcases. I loved the ride. I was 4. All the way for nearly 5 km as the engine broke down. 

7. For always taking my side. Even when I was wrong. For I felt loved. I felt pampered. Sis clinged on mom. And I had you. It balanced it out. I was always “Daddy’s girl” Always will be. 

8. For raising me up as your son. Your constant refrain was I was a guy in a girls body.  It made me do things. Stupid things. And courageous things. But always for a dare. If guys can do it. I can. And It served me well always. 

9. For teaching me that men working in the kitchen is not wrong. For caring for my mother enough to help her by cutting vegetables, by washing clothes long before being feminist was a fad. To have never said no for anything related to education ever.

10. Esp for understanding my mothers dream, and to have encouraged her to study till she was B. Ed. ( She was 10th pass when she married him. And they married quite late. My mom was nearly 50 when she got B ed. And all thanks to my dad and my mom’s will ofcourse.)

 

Ten things I love about being your  daughter ( wrt mother)

1. The fact that you were strong enough to single handedly take care of your family being a female and to have come to Mumbai at the age of 18. All alone.

2. For teaching me practicality means compromise and yet with love and that its not a sacrifice.

3. For being so patient with someone as sensitive as me. When I cried in front of you with my litany of complaints ( I still have them .. but no one to listen to) when you had woken up as early as 5 am. Cooked, cleaned and washed clothes. Caught the local at 10 am to Dadar( standing all the way) then catching a bus to Prabhadevi where you worked. And in the evening catching the ever crowded Virar local. Coming to empty and dirty home that needed cleaning. Cooking that needed to be done. And then listen to both of us ( me n sis) fight like junglees that we were.

4. For telling me stories late in the night. For buying me fairy tales even though they were too costly. Even though I would have finished them in one day. Even though you didnt u\s why I liked them . Or may be you did understand.

5. For asking us to help you with your projects. Remember that bumble bee  with a magnet we made for your science project? Me and sis? And that parody song on road cleanliness ? For all those creative outlets thank you.

6. For making us aware of world thats less privileged than us. For making us care. 

7. For those countless clinging you suffered even when you were dead tired. Late in the night for singing lullabies till we fell asleep

8. For teaching me justice. Dad pampered. But you showed me the right path always.

9.  For listening and listening till your ears ached. Never found a better listener!

10. And for simply being what you were. Warm, caring and A mother. For looking after when we fell sick. For shielding from dad when we made a mistake and repented( like when we ran away from home). For giving birth to us by taking so much risks( you were 44 nearly when I was born and we both were Cesarean) . For countless prayers that you gave in various temples  for our well being.

 

And to you both to have made us what we are. Women with independent thought, strength to face whatever life throws at us. And yet to be able to care, and be loving. 

For dad, to have taught us whatever we know about cooking.  And mom to have inculcated a strong sense of responsibility in us.

 

And now…

The 10 things I hate about being your daughter ( wrt dad)

 

1. The calls you made even if I was 5 min late to all our friend’s home.

2. For over protecting us so much that when time came, to fend for you as well as ourselves, our 1 steps were shaky and full of pain.

3. For saying no to anything fun unless you both were there. And you were never there.

4. For dreaming about ‘moving to south’ so much so that every plan was altered to make a way for that dream and yet it was never realized until we decided and planned it for you.

5. For idealism that ultimately hurt you and in turn us severely.

6. For your hot temper and hurtful words hurled in anger. Saying sorry afterwards never makes it ‘okay’. 

7. For being an emotional fool and believing charlatans , just too many times for me to count!

8. For being protective all your life and never actually doing it when it mattered. Funny thing is you dont even know. We protected it from you. We being your kids. I guess you did raise us well.

9. This is actually a mixed blessing. For exposing us to books and ideas way beyond our age. in effect making us alienated with our friends who thought we were weird.. at the same time, which assured that I never really had to work hard to score good marks. I was touted as weird genius while I was neither.

10. For moving us to chennai ( with our aunt but alone in the compartment as Aunt had reservations in other compartment. We traveled alone.. whatever aunt might tell you.. We were not scared. It was an adventure.. still.. )when I was 7 and sis 8, as a part of moving to south scheme.  We had a hard time making friends there since we didn’t know the language anyways. And just when we did start making friends you took us back as your plan back fired. It was silly wasteful and it hurt us!

 

10 things I hate about being your daughter ( wrt mom)

1. It is silly really but the first thing that comes to me is about that first poetry I wrote about you. I read it out to you with so much love and your response was a bewildered question.. where did you steal it from.. I was so hurt that I stopped writing then. I was 12. 

2. For never saying anything against dad even when you knew he was wrong.. for keeping peace at home.

3. For dying! I wish you lived to see how well we have grown.

4. For being so sacrificial that you never lived for yourself. For not doing a single thing that you dreamt about . No travel No singing nothing! 

5. For living in future like dad.. and letting things rot in present.

6. For not being able to say sorry for the hurtful things I said to you in that last fight. For the selfish words I uttered.

7. For being so dejected with life that you had to take the support of spirituality in such a way that in the end, it took you away from us.

8. For the times you vented your frustrations on us with the rolling pin.

9. For never being there in the school for the PTA meeting. Ever. This is for both dad and mom.

10. For never bothering to see if we ever did our homework etc ever. This is again for both mom and dad.

And this is again for both of you… for comparing us always with other kids and finding us lacking.. however, same treatment made on you made you guys angry.  The irony is that rest of the people in the apartment did the same to their kids and found us as a role model. Go figure! 

 

All in all.. it wasn’t really sweet.. but it wasn’t all bitter .. but being a daughter is surely difficult.. atleast for me..