For as long as i can remember, I have been an independent soul. My father, a fiercely independent man himself, always tried to instill the sense of independence from when I was little. He would explain the small things in life that made us independent – read your own books – it’s the biggest joy in life – he would say, walk to the bus stand for the school bus yourself – learning to walk alone is the biggest lesson to learn – he would say, eat your food with your own hands – enjoying food with one’s own hands will make you taste every bit of the food – he would say, express yourself – your expressions make you the person you are going to be in the future – he would say, and make your own decisions – it’s the choices you make that shape the life you would lead – he would say.
So from early on, I had a deep understanding of being independent, and would enjoy establishing my sense of independence on my family. It wasn’t always appreciated by my mother who didn’t see these as good virtues of a woman – learn to be obedient she would say! But my father nurtured this streak of rebellious attitude – as some termed it as – and it grew.
But as i grew up and met new friends, i started to feel a sense of distance between them and me. I would come across friends who, while being just like me, did not know how to be independent. They did not know how to walk or talk or express themselves freely. They would look around a bit, be hesitant, and walk away from situations helpless. I would look at them and not be able to understand why. Was she different than me? Is she scared? Is she too vulnerable? I would ask myself. They would second guess themselves whenever faced with a choice as simple as “should i go for a movie instead of finishing my homework?” and there would be me who would make the choice as soon as it presented itself. Little did i know then that not everyone was allowed to make choices or taught even to make a choice at all? I just knew about my life and my choices…they were told they didn’t have a choice. And even when they were old enough, they always thought there weren’t many choices to be made after all. It was sad because it seemed unfair
When i was older, and got married, suddenly I was faced with the choice of either being independent or having to conform to certain rules laid out by my new family. I fought fiercely against the norms, at first, against the world of no choices, against the tradition to conform and found myself failing. Feeling restless i expressed myself against my new family with logic and sense. If i talked about it to father, he would ask me to choose between right and wrong and i knew he would expect me to choose the right. Knowing that however, I didn’t want to talk about it because while i was trying to fight, I was also choosing to stay amidst everything that i always thought was wrong. I was choosing because i didn’t want to stand alone. When had the fear of standing alone crept into my mind? I didn’t know. I was afraid to be myself. I was afraid to be alone and in all of this i was afraid to be independent. I was now one of my friends who were scared to make their own choices. I feared because i was afraid to lose, i feared to fly because i was afraid to fall. I had changed. At first i noticed the changes, later it seemed to make no difference.
Then one day five years back, i became a mother. I looked at my child who was all of 6 months defiant and fierce in her voice against everything that she didn’t seem to enjoy…new food, new nanny, new toys! I experienced a sense of freedom after a long time – a freedom i had completely kept aside – something that my little one was already beginning to show. I remembered my father’s words – the words of learning to walk alone, to read, to write, to express. I figured the time had come to instill the joy of freedom, of choice and of independence in my little one. I had lost mine for a while, but it was time to teach them to my daughter and hope that she would live with them a little longer than i did because as my father always said – a life without independence was a life that wasn’t your own.
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