“When life gets tough, the tough get going.”
For most successful people, it’s true. For the rest of them, it’s rather an odd path to walk. Luckily, I had an elder sister to fall back on and a father who was barely there during the day, but somehow, he always made it in time for attendance.
As a child, I was always the quiet one. Although I loved socializing and showing my teeth to the world, with little to talk to with my grandparents, I grew up shy and timid. Not a lot, just enough for me to notice.
My father, being a banker, was bound to move from city to city depending on whatever place came allotted to the names in the list. So my pain in life doubled again, or so I thought, every time we had to move. But those 20 days or so were worth the elysian respite I experienced every time I made friends and went on an escapade into the new city.
I wondered, often alone, traveling to places I had to check off my list. In Mumbai, I got into the habit of travelling by trains. Or locals, as we call them there. Something I should share now for you to be able to make sense of all this drama is that I always had a hard time bonding with my family. At least when I grew older and attained a precocious state of mind. I was always the rebel, the black sheep, and my family, the bunch of reserved, calm people. So, in my train journeys, I would almost always think about just how sweet and primrose-y I have to become, in order to win my mother’s unqualified approval. She wasn’t mean, just bossy.
We always operated in two different parallels. Her, being the religious chauvinist dictating the not-to-do list. Me, being the firm atheistic opposition.
With all this in tangent, came the day, when my parents had to move to Patiala. I had two years of my undergrad remaining in Mumbai. The day they told me, I started panicking. I was excited to have all that freedom at my whim, but I was afraid of having absolutely no loved one around me. Not one to mingle and make small talk, I started looking for a pg as both of my parents were working and I had to live somewhere. At the computer, prodded out of the rhythm of browsing. With each passing advert, I tried to imagine the moments and the events that must have led to these catalog of houses being up for rent. Anyway, I finalized a place, had my mother look at it, check it for bad vibes, and moved my belongings a week before they were set to leave.
Living alone, which earlier framed a dirty look, obscured fear and anxiety, was now my cone of solitude. I am sufficed in knowing I survived something I thought I wouldn’t be able to. But I did. Like so many things I don’t give myself enough credit for, I realized them day by day. I emerged from a timid little girl, to someone today who can get off at Dadar station at 6 am with little worries. Today, I count my blessings every morning I wake up. If was Catelyn Stark 2 years ago, I am a step closer to becoming Arya Stark today. And I will have become Arya, when I finish my two years with the esteemed SCMHRD family.