Never gotten this personal before. This should just be a memoir of my parents.
I don't like to get personal online or in real life. Privacy reasons. Who cares. Keep to yourself & work. Don't want any pity or sympathy. In fact, I've debated publishing this for years. I still don't know. Yet, I figured I should write this anyway because it is in fact, the most important life lesson I have learnt. So lets begin I guess.
Nobody in my circle knows this, but I was born into poverty in a shady locality in Dehradun, India. Sure, we had food & we were not starving, but many kids I knew were. Sleeping on the streets, living in filth etc. You get the point re the other kids. The food wasn't particularly nutritious or whatever. It was just fine. I did not come across candy or chocolates many times. There was no celebration candy or stuff. So when on the rare occasion I did eat those it would seem magical (Irony in life is funny if you know my eating habits now). Did not have toys either. We used to live in what is essentially a shed. The first "house" I remember of course, I was actually not born there. When it rained, the roof would leak over us & not let us sleep. The place would get flooded inside & things would get lost. Food would spoil. I remember once the rain washed away my school shoes so I had to skip school that day. We had a fan for summers but power cuts were frequent & my mom would often use a plastic hand fan so I could sleep while she was awake all night waving that fan by hand. Summers were hot. Winters were cold. You get the point. As insane as it all sounds now typing this from a nice cozy room on a desk with a great laptop, it all seemed normal then. This is how things are.
I remember seeing a TV for the first time at one of the neighbor's place & being fascinated by it. Cool! We got one that only had 2 channels (no cable) & would have bad signal which led to unwatchable flickering, but I would stare at it for hours. I saw kids in shows having pets & a garden & I would be like, I want this. That lifestyle was alien. Why don't we have like a car to go around visit people for dinner? I remember my dad teaching me about cricket, to support & cheer India & to hate on other teams, especially Pakistan (Indoctrination is real I still have these biases. Honestly, justified biases. But that is a separate post maybe for the future). I had only sat in a car once or twice by the time I was like 9. I don't remember. I did not watch movies though I knew the concept. I knew the Bollywood stars. But I did not know what the kids at school were talking about.
Now, the most important part to drive home the message: My parents were raising me while working 16-17-18 hours a day. They only slept for like 5-6 hours. Maybe 4 on some days. No matter how bad things got, be it due to weather, financial constraints, health etc, they always showed up to work. They always ensured I was at school. No matter what. I think I had like 3-4 leaves through the entirety of my schooling. This is not an exaggeration. Never took a sick day throughout school, college or work (has to be some sort of world record I think though I cannot prove it. Well well.) I wasn't a particularly smart child. I wasted time like anybody else, still do. Be it just playing, looking at that TV, or just not studying. I was & am just a dude. Today too I fight procrastination & am prone to it. This is not a "poverty made me a grinder" lecture. The point is I always showed up. My parents ensured it. I was in class, somewhat learning. They had burnt all money they'd make to get me into a decent school. And they would pick me up & bring me to work where I would see them deal with customers all day. They'd get disrespected, cheated & frustrated but always showed up. I remember my dad losing a lot of money in the stock market (none of us are perfect. He got greedy & overconfident, we all have a few screws lose. Read this for why I got interested in Finance from this). They'd carry on, no matter how bad things got with their business. I observed work culture from a young age, my parents' work ethic, the surrounding businesses & some shady people. People tell me I am too "mature" for my age & I think it might be because of this, but I don't know what "mature" means. I don't complain, it is what it is & my childhood was what it was.
Eventually we did get our own nice house. I was sent to a better school. Things moved upwards. We got a car, & then recently a better car. While I won't certainly call us rich, we are still lower middle class, we still are okay! My parents sleep a bit more now. They stressed a lot earlier, they stress slightly less now. I am working a great job in Finance. My parents tell me not to take life seriously, to not stress too much, not overwork or overpush, all the while I saw them essentially drown himself in all these things passionately over these years at great mental & physical cost. Even as a child, I could see their worry & sad state even if they tried to hide it. Like any other parent, they wanted what was best for me, even if they were not perfect parents. Children can be good at reading people more than adults think. Anyways, my parents, they still show up! They don't go on vacations, never had the concept earlier. They are considering it now. They will probably never retire. I remember once my dad saying on a drive back to home that in his youth as a struggling salesman who had been laid off multiple times & living in bad conditions, he would never have imagined he would have all this.
The whole point of writing all of this being, with me getting emotional as I type this, the most important lesson I have realized looking back now, is to just show up. I am where I am because I always show up to the fight, emulating my parents. They did what they did because of them always showing up. You become reliable. Sure there are other things, but it is important to be there. To always be there. While I know I can never work as hard as my parents, atleast I can always show up consistently to improve. Even if I stumble occasionally with the time wasting like any normal person like scrolling on my phone. Just have to show up. Always be there. It improves my chances. I don't take leaves no matter how bad things get. Only when I need to. I am in there to face challenges, be it the gym, work or if friends need me. I hope to be able to do this forever. To get better everyday slowly.
And once again, a salute to my parents before signing off. No one will tell their story, but it is a story worth telling has more. All such stories are. I hope to hear more stories like this. I hope poverty ends some day & no child or adults starves or sleeps without a good shelter & clothing. Poverty is the elemental foe.
Just Show Up.
PS: Never getting this personal again I hated it.
I have never revised & sat on anything I have written so much before publishing.
Update: 2 days after writing this, I learnt someone from my old neighborhood unfortunately took his own life. He was around my age & I don't know the details nor I knew him, but utterly shocking.
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