Lessons learnt/re-learnt for today- #26 (On struggle and me wanting to be a good son)

Important note: The below post is a bit personal for me and I appreciate you reading this. As a thank you, here is a picture of a cute kitten before you proceed:

Story of my life. My cat does the same thing to me every day -__-

Let’s begin;

“Hottepaadu.”

Translated to English from Kannada, it loosely means “the struggle of the stomach”.

It’s a phrase commonly used from where I come from. My family is well-to-do now, and we have been blessed. But growing up both my parents never had it easy. And my grandparents had it even worse; sometimes they didn’t even have a roof over their heads at times and had to struggle constantly each day. The constant struggle of two generations before me has blessed me with the life I am leading today and for that, I am eternally grateful. There are many like me in Bangalore whose parents moved to the city from various parts of the state and country, had it rough and struggled to provide to their children and give them a life and opportunities that they never had. But unfortunately, most don’t recognise that hard work and some even squander it selfishly by being trapped in their worldviews and heads. More on that later.

‘Hottepaadu’ is therefore a term that was quite often in my household especially when my father faced any adverse situation, or something knocked him out. Each time he would pick himself up refusing to give up, mutter these words and go into battle. It was his way of reminding himself that he was struggling not just to feed himself but his family as well so as the head and caretaker he had to play his part diligently. My dad took his role in his life seriously. To put it even more in context, think of this word as our version of Annie’s ‘It’s a hard knock life’.

Which brings me to us aka the current generation. Spoilt, rich, have it all, want it all, selfish, self-centred, egoistic and narcissistic. Well…most of us. I was fortunate enough to see my parents struggles during my early childhood days and the first few years of their marriage. Dad then had a rickety bike, we lived in a tiny rented home, no furniture, our pillows and mattresses were rock hard, and we made our dosa batter using a grinding stone because we didn’t have a mixer. I’ve seen the struggle, each one of us have faced adverse situations where for example we’ve all been in accidents separated by a few months and years. Trying times especially when we couldn’t afford to pay the bills. Now in the present day when Dad drives us in his car to the site of our future home where we’d have an indoor elevator and more, I can’t help but feel immense pride about us as a family unit. Together we’ve braved it all and have come a long way; I matured into an adult and am finding my way in life, dad is on his way to retirement having successfully built a home and is going to start the construction of a second one, he and my mother have had twenty eight years of marital bliss (and counting) and my mother has had a successful medical practise for which she says wouldn’t have been possible without the constant support and love from my father.

The term ‘Hottepaadu’ means something to us because not only have we lived it, we’ve experienced it harshly as well especially when it was a huge effort to put food on the table for us back then. My grandparents had it even worse and before they established a successful business and a farm, they went starving for days at an end simply because it was the only option left. They would curb their hunger by going to bed after toiling all day with a damp cloth on their bare bellies.

So, it pissed me off and rubbed me the wrong way when a colleague of mine used that term in office. An acquaintance passed by us when we were having lunch and she enquired about how he was to which he replied, “Eh. Hottepaadu. Same old, same old. The usual.” And I fumed. I was furious. In my mind I angrily thought “How dare you use that word? It does not apply to you. To your parents…yes but not you.” Because he wore an expensive branded shirt, immaculately ironed chinos, Oxfords that cost way more than they should. His lunch was delivered to him through an app on his iPhone, calories counted carefully, a rich spread in front of him that also included strawberry flavoured yogurt. As a kid who experienced hunger and whose parents had it worse, it made me angry when he used that word so callously.

What is the lesson from this rant?

Something to do with how we should be careful about the words we use around our kids because they pick up from our behaviour and lives? Parents are a child’s first role model after al.

A lesson about how spoilt and entitled we are as a generation because we’ve never struggled; our parents did for us and we just have to live our lives and make something about it instead? Was it a lack of struggle for survival in my friend’s life that made him use a word he too would have heard being used frequently in his home?

What does it tell about us as a generation whose entire struggle is that of an emotional kind because everything else in the world has been handed to us on a platter? So, we try to cope with these feelings; of inadequacy, guilt, selfishness, negative thoughts, depressed feelings, a wave of emotions that we struggle to contain and put a lid on.

Perhaps the reason I fumed when he used that word is because at times, I do feel guilty that I just reaped the benefits of my parent’s hard work and labour. My parents struggled a lifetime to get to where we are now and elevated our social standing in our society a bit higher. My ex at the time came from a bit more affluent family and she’d put down the house I was currently living in because it was smaller for her taste and she was used to a lot more “comfort”. She was quite rude about it then. It made me furious and I was tempted to retort saying that the house we were currently building was larger than her existing house but I didn’t. I didn’t see any point in it. That would have been petty of me anyway. It made me angry that this one girl who I dated was so selfish and materialistic that she’d easily put down a lifetime of hard work, determination and effort put in by my parents simply because she couldn’t see the effort that went behind building the home I currently live in. She did it so carelessly without a moment’s thoughts because her “comfort” was all that she cared for; not our love, relationship, my parents, their hard work, nothing.  It was a huge red flag for me then and my suspicions turned out to be true when our relationship imploded months later.

I love my parents and want to stand by them at all times. I want to be a doting son who takes care of them and lets them know each day that I value all their hard work and all that they did for me and our family. I want to show them that I do love them and care for them a lot. My biggest wish on this planet is to give my parents a good life while being a good son at the same time so that they can enjoy their retirement years in peace; happy, content and debt free.

Sometimes…most of the times I don’t live up to my expectations of what it means to be a good son. I feel I let them down at times. I can be really hard on myself and am working on it. When my ex told me, she wanted to call off our engagement I was worried about my parents immediately because I knew it would break their hearts and it did. I can deal with a broken heart, but I don’t want them to go through one again; they have struggled enough. These past few days I’ve been trying hard to be a good son and put up a brave face so that they don’t see how sad I am but…. it’s been hard.

We have our national Independence Day coming soon in two days. My dad asked me if I wanted to come to our future home’s site that day because they were digging for a borewell. He asked if I wanted to come see the process and I immediately jumped at the chance simply because I wanted to show my dad that I could be there for him and I was excited about our new joint project as a family.

I hope I get to make them happy someday soon. For that I need to be happy first and fix my life. To that I need to work on myself internally so that the changes show externally. Its how it works. Right now, all I got to do and can do is to just keep at it, be brave and let time do its work.

‘Hottepaadu’. No one should ever utter those words. Callously or on purpose even if they are going through it. A tiny part of me dies when I hear that word; it’s a reminder of the guilt I have within me.

“Time is the answer to all your problems” – Anonymous.

Thank you for reading this,

The Random Bangalorean

(No copyright infringement is intended for the pictures used)