A Ripped Page From My Diary...

My childhood was so stimulating and interesting that made me a boring lazy adult. Rejections and dejections played hide and seek on and on until I realized that I turned 26. I am the first granddaughter to both my paternal and maternal families and they celebrated me when I was born. I used to feel so special around them, but my parents chose to be a nuclear family and lived 200 kilometres away from both their families. In the early 80s, commuting and communication were not as easy and cheap as in the modern info-tech world. I longed a lot for the pampering of my grandparents so much! 

My mom is a perfectionist and an ambitious woman who finds even the tiniest fault in something and tries to fix it. My dad is a connoisseur of life, love, and art! They are poles apart in nature and character traits and they quarrel pretty much every day like cats and dogs. When I was 5, one evening, my father came home and quarrelled with my mom; as a child, I was petrified by the yelling and screaming, and the quarrel just went on for almost 2.30 hours, and at its peak, my father started to beat my mom blue and black. I intervened to protect her instinctively. My father dragged both me and my mom out of the door and locked the door at 9:45 PM. We were crying and hugging each other tightly till early morning 5. Finally, he opened the door and took us in and I didn't go to school that day. I still remember the dress I wore and the wet cheeks of my mom and mine with the whimpering sound! It is my strongest and first memory of them making me feel so insignificant. 

That was not just one night! Until they both passed away in the same week, the screams and cries, and verbal and physical abuses continued. Sadly, as a child, I couldn't do anything, and even as an adult till I turned 39, I couldn't do anything with their lives. I have the curse of eidetic memory, I can relive both joyful and sorrowful moments that affected me deeply. Indeed, it is a gift to be nurtured and it helped me in my literature education as I can vividly remember the lines that I read. (I can easily figure out the plagiarism.) More than its advantages, I am crippled by the disadvantages as I can never forget and move on so easily. 

Of course, I have turned out to be a sensible adult who can read, write, and earn my living. But, I live in a panic room mentally and I don't trust people to enter it. I have developed a strong aversion to the family setup itself. I am scared of any relationship and intimate friendship even. I believe in animals and other non-animated living beings such as trees and plants. I literally talk to them and smile at them which must seem like crazy acts to my friends. I never fit into any group of people. I am scared of crowds and loud noises (ochlophobia and phonophobia). I can live without seeing the sun and talking to people happily for months together, and I had lived in lockdown like that. I have been living pretty much so even now. All my friends and relatives pity me for living so. But, they don't understand technically I can function only that way. I don't blame my late parents completely for the way I am. If I do so, I also must thank them for all the good I have. Whoever reads this story must think twice before raising your voice in front of your children, if you want them to be hale and happy children. 

The parents who read this will have the sanity not to scream in front of their children. However, the parents who quarrel might not know how to read. In India, it's hard to even interfere in neighbours' family issues. How much ever, we brag about our growth and success as a nation, we are still a third-world crowd who let our children live in poverty with their parents in whatever worse environment they live in. I wish I had a magical wand to give them hygienic and healthy shelter, and free food and education. At the least, there should be a functional forum to protect these children from abusive parents and unhealthy environments as in the Western world.