- BY NEHA
Some of you may have noticed that there were no posts on
this blog during the months of June and July. As most of our readers are aware,
I have recently relocated to a new country. Moving to a new place, whilst
exciting and adventurous, is also quite unnerving and mentally taxing at times.
I started my house hunt here towards the end of April and
by May was able to find a nice little home for myself. The only problem was –
mortgage! I never realized how challenging it could be for a new immigrant,
with almost zero credit history to get a decent mortgage. Fortunately enough, I
was able to secure a mortgage and have happily moved into my new home.
I love my new place – not only do I feel proud of
everything little thing in the house I own, I feel extremely blessed to not
just have a good job but now a home, all within 5 months of moving to this
country.
I am very pleased with the way my life is shaping up here.
I have learnt to become independent and handle day-to-day activities with
little or no assistance (though I must
mention that some really kind people here have been extremely generous in
helping me out and have definitely made life and settling-in easier for me).
However, there are times when I can’t help but think how far away I am from my
family. It isn’t that I truly appreciate their value in my life now that I am
away from them (I’ve always known how
blessed I am to have a family that loves and supports me unconditionally);
it’s just that living in a new country and experiencing a different culture has
made me realize that parents are not regarded with the same, not even similar, reverence
in other societies.
Hailing from a country where family values are so deeply
ingrained in almost everyone I know, it is difficult for me to comprehend how
teenagers here wait for the day they can move out of their parents’ home and
how parents are happy to finally have an ‘empty nest’. With my moving away and
my brother going off to University in another State, my mother has been quite
sad lately. Her children are her lifeline and not having either one of us close
to her has hit her like a brick. She can’t hardly wait for the day when my
brother completes University and moves back home.
‘Guidance’ and ‘Interference’ are two separate things, yet
parents in this country shy away from offering ‘guidance’ to their children after a certain age, thinking that
their help/advice may be regarded as ‘interference’.
Teenagers and young adults do feel that after a certain age they should be free
to do as they please without having to seek anybody’s permission, but even a
30-year old needs guidance at times; and who better to guide us then the very
two people who brought us into this world and who have experienced life way
more than we have.
I still seek my parent’s guidance whenever I am stuck or
confused and they are more than happy to help me out. Not only is their advice
bang-on, they are at times able to cast light on a new perspective that I
wasn’t even aware existed.
I know that every culture is different, just like people
raised in the same cultural-setting can be vastly dissimilar at times, however
even with that awareness I am still not able to come to terms with the dynamics
of the parent-child relationship in this country.
Some of you who are into Bollywood may have noticed that my post’s title is inspired from
the tagline of a famous movie. I do truly believe that the only two people who
have the ability to love you selflessly, without expecting anything in return,
are your parents.
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