"I think we dream so we don’t have
to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s
dreams, we can be together all the time." I realised one
thing through the course of my life so far. You can never teach anyone
anything. When people say life is an experience, they are right. Only
experiences teach people lessons that they will carry forward with them for the
rest of their lives. I guess, until it happens to you, you never know how it
feels and no one can ever expect you to either. Everything is emotion or
experience related. When we give someone advice to prevent them from getting
hurt or doing something that they would probably regret, the advice only become
wise words for them. It is not something that they will understand the meaning
of. Lately, a lot of people have been reassuring me that they are there for me.
I have never gotten the amount of support that I have got in the recent years
and I am very grateful for it. But though I know that there are a lot of people
I can count on, it doesn't stop me from feeling lonely. It't not the physical
feeling of being lonely, its a feeling that I can't explain to anyone. It's a
combination of anger, frustration and being upset. I don't want anyone to
understand how I feel because for that to happen, they would have to go through
similar things themselves and that is something I wouldn't wish for
anyone.
I remember as a child, I used to speak to my parents about how we
were a very different family from all the others I knew. For starters, my
parents were the coolest people I knew, literally. My mother used to wear hot
shorts and a sleeveless top, sunglasses with a beer in her hand and race me up
and down the beach in Alibaug. She beat me every single time no matter how old
she was. She would scare me at times by saying things that I never thought
parents would say to their children especially their daughter who lives in an
Indian society. My parents were ahead of their generation and way ahead of the
mindset of their counterparts. Both my parents being only children and me also
being an only child, were close knit. I still haven't come across a single other
family that has family dynamics like mine. To compensate for not having
siblings, my mother got me a dog when I was a year and a half old. That dog
became my best friend, my companion and my brother. As I grew up, I taught him
how to say please, how to climb onto the bed (which he very rarely did) and a
few other commands. In return, he taught his four year old companion how to
crawl under the bed and how to growl. I was a happy child. I didn't want
siblings. Instead, by the time I was six, I had three dogs. After moving to
school and college, I used to speak to my mother every day. And her
conversations always started with "hi babes" even if she had already
spoken to me twice before on the same day. My father and I used to discuss
issues that needed to be resolved and put our head together to find the best
solution to whatever needed to be addressed. Both my parents taught me what is
right and wrong, but never told me exactly what to do. "Make decisions that
you know are right for you and the people around you" I was told.
From everything that I have been taught and gone through in life,
there is one thing that I have learnt for sure. No matter how difficult things
might get or how easy they may seem, the best way to learn anything in life is
to experience it. Not to show sympathy to someone or to empathise with someone
but to experience everything first hand. It makes you stronger and it makes you
hold your head higher. A lot of my friends lately haven't been happy with what
they are doing. Either it is because it is something that they didn't expect or
there is something else that they would rather do. But most of them have told
me instances in which they have learnt something from what is happening around
them. It is something they are glad that they now know about and something that
has taught them something new. Now that I have finished my MBA, I often wonder
why I joined it in the first place. Sometimes, when I think back, the last two
years have been a blur. I hardly remember any of the classes or what was taught
in them. But the things I do remember is the different people I encountered and
made friends with. These two years were an experience that I wouldn't like to
trade with any other. From being absolutely against doing an MBA to being
thankful I finally did it, is a journey that is a string of experiences - some
good, some not so good, but all of them worth my time. There is nothing in this
world that beats what first hand experiences can teach.
