The post has a bearing with one of the recent incidents in the family on Sept 2nd 2019. More precisely, it occurred in the night of September 1st that actually went through the morning hours of Sept 2nd. And, I was informed in the morning of Sept 2nd around 9 am by Lalita, my second eldest sister. The moment was also the very next morning of Teej festival and I was getting ready for my office.
Why I needed to make a mention of all this is because almost everybody in family has forced me live through a constant panic and a state of uncertainty.
Whenever I have had a counselling with a family member to better his/her life prospects, the very next morning or only a few days down the line, I have learnt that things are going in same messy manner. It felt me as if, my suggestions and aspirations are least bothered about.
The precise, incident of Sept. 1st was that Suresh, my brother in law and husband to Lalita had attempted to hang himself. The reason as I was explained by Lalita was an altercation and hot exchanges after Suresh returned home drunk in the night of Sept 1st. Being the occasion of Teej, Lalita was on a fast for entire day followed by night and wasn’t expecting Suresh to come home drunk.
Most strange part, was that only a day before, precisely on Aug 31st, Lalita and Suresh both had come to my residence in Navi Mumbai for a meet which was an overdue. Lalita had come to Mumbai a week back to see her husband when she learnt that Suresh had suffered certain injury in his hand after falling from the terrace of his rented house in a drunk state.
The message in the early morning of Sept 2nd shook me so badly this time around that I lost my natural instinct to call up Suresh or to discuss the state of affairs with anybody in the family. It impacted me from the very core and kind of got caught in sheer despair. It reminded me all the incidents as to how my aspirations have been shattered by one and all. Be it Satyendra, Babuji or Guddi.
For the most part, my expectations are hammered out by Satyendra so to speak and when his activities were silently permitted by Babuji, made the things all the worse.
Till Satyendra was in school, he did lot of things unexpected of a boy from an average middle class family. Running away from the hostel, dropping the school, running away from the class and roaming around in study period all were his favourite pastime.
I used to be seriously hurt by all this. As I wanted him to do good in academics as I was not fortunate enough to get all the basic facility of studies in my school years and the college time was even more struggling. I wanted him to do good in studies, get into medicine and later to sit for UPSC as I missed all these things in course of chasing to meet the requirements of family.
In fact, the expectations that I had was based on certain assumptions, it was not baseless. I had got him a good school and a better environment than all of my sibling could get. I also kind of relied on his capabilities for I saw the toughness in him essentially required for getting into medicine or IAS. Because, the very basic facilities very belied to me by the family situations, so I dreamt of getting my own dreams fulfilled through his achievements.
During his 8th or 9th, I came to Mumbai with leaving him under the guidance of Parents. Seeing his hyperactive approaches, I persuaded parents to settle in Telaiya. The things however, went on going like unguided missile. His 9th and 10th of schooling got even more pathetic. Babuji didn’t pay due attention to his activities and whenever I had a time to visit Telaiya, my suggestions were not taken seriously either by Babuji or Satyendra upon my return.
When I used to learn [at Mumbai] that things were not in control and satyendra was not at all adhering to any of my suggestions as far as his routine and studies were concerned, I had many times confronted with Babuji. But all he told me was that, all the fingers of hand could not be equal nor they had to be.
Wasting time with friends in many different activities was something that led him to a poor state of studies. His interests later turned to biking and got a sports bike purchased by cleverly convincing Babuji around the time when he passed his 10th board. Things further went on going wrong side. Insisting for 10+2 science from Grizzly and dropping that too, sensing the studies was not of his cup of tea, was another major self destructing move for him.
I remained seriously hurt by all this. He went on changing to 10+2 commerce but again was not focussed to his studies. Somehow he was able to score good at 10+2 to which again he used as a tool to give impression to parents that they need not worry.
Once he did his 10+2 in 2016, I offered him a chance to improve upon his studies and sent him to Patna for coaching and academics too. But inputs again started coming in that he was visiting Telaiya too frequently. I again felt seriously wretched at all this. One good thing that happened to him and to the family also was that sending Patna kept him away from legal complications that could otherwise arose during an offence done by one of his street friends.
By learning his frequent visit to Telaiya and poor attention to studies I had almost stopped passing on any suggestion to him. In the meantime during March 2018, when I had been to Telaiya to see Babuji having stuck up in a depression kind of mental stage, got to know another startling fact that he was yet to complete few chapters of maths in coaching. Amazingly, this was the the scenario when he was given uninterrupted opportunity from July 2016 to March 2018. I was aghast to learn that if 10th grade maths coaching took him so long to finish, was there any point in keeping him away from elderly father who had gone into shock out of an altercation with villagers.
I pleaded him that he stayed back in Telaiya and stood close by father in whatever he did or wherever he went. I worked out an elaborate planning with him for future course of his career, Amarendra’s studies and the course of all family member in general. Also, asked him that he could take Rs 50K from father’s savings to buy a bullet bike as he would be the person to always accompany father and because riding bullet was part of his ambitions. For rest of the price, I had advised him to pay in EMI from his own earning on the side as he was supposed to accompany father in his profession and profession was to be adopted by him eventually.
But again, too my utter shock he convinced father to pay entire price of Bullet bike and discontinued going with father. Upon my enquiry with father and other family members I was kept in dark that things were going as per my suggestions only. Owing to huge debt for home at Navi Mumbai I was kind of devastated to learn all this. Most paining part was that Amarendra’s studies could not be worked out as per my plan. I was shattered at all this development for which Satyendra was in a central role.
This was a major setback which turned around the direction of many of my plans. Satyendra was at least 22 then and deceiving a guardian who has been in the main role of earning bread for entire family and changing the fate of family from Gurha to Telaiya was an unbearable pain for me. This was sort of causing damage to my belief in blood relationships and family as a concept. I had to conclude that I could not expect anyone to stand by me in fighting the odds that aimed providing the entire family a respectable living.
Then came the shock from Guddi in Feb 2019. Literally, I got my heads spinning to have learnt the choices made by her to take her life forward. I was completely shocked to learn the priorities of a post graduate girl who somehow saw her future with a person with no academic background, an uncivilized and a doubtful identity. However, this incident impressed upon me necessity of a much required communication in a friendly manner. I had left the interaction and counselling things for young ones on Kavita. And that was my mistake for she wasn’t in constant touch with the growing boys and girls in the family.
The shocks from Babuji have always been regarding implementation of decisions taken jointly with me. And, also hiding from me the certain decisions taken or incidents happened that affected peace and well being of family. Unfortunately, the decisions and incidents were brought to me either by my mother or sisters when the situations grew out of proportion and unmanageable at Babuji’s end. My instructions and suggestions however since 2004 were in place for everybody in the family that incidents be brought to me as and when it occurred.
If I am to jot down every act of un-trustworthiness from siblings and hiding of the instances by babuji, the list can go on and on. These all have pushed me back in my fight to uplift the family. They have added to my wooes. And, why I call them unpredictability is that they all came to me at different point of time as a shock and unexpected tremors to be most precise.