My Shrinking heart

As a kid I was never short of excuses to cry and my favourite one was having to say goodbye. I hated that good times were not meant to last. Those days, good times had nothing to do with spending your money. It was all about spending time with people you loved. Come evenings, come holidays and we’d head out to meet friends or our outstation relatives. Sundays meant grand family reunions or early morning picnics. So what if it was the seedy Budha Jayanti Park, where behind every bush there was a couple furiously making out.

We could never have enough of loving, caring and sharing. Just like a Karan Johar movie. Except for the fact, that the ladies in our family didn’t break into an impromptu dance, in our 14000 square feet living hall. Those were the days of Garden Vareli and not saris that had every conceivable pattern of sequins and coloured stone planted on it.

Every inland letter dropped in our rickety letter box, was a harbinger of joy – a birth, wedding, or a relative writing about his plans to visit us next month. I would spend the next few weeks in fevered anticipation while my Mom would start stressing about the added chores. She was a working woman. But at that time I was too young to understand her and would get angry with her for being such a spoilsport.

My definition of Utopia was a summer break spent with my cousins, sucking mangoes stolen from the store-room, trying to frighten each other with ghost stories, running all around the house, toppling furniture, screaming like banshees – while our Moms gave us disapproving looks. Seven of us huddled together on the bed, the fan creaking noisily overhead, barely caring about the heat, as we chattered noisily.
 

My biggest fear was getting separated from my cousins. Oh, how tears would flow when we had to bid adieu.

Look how age changes perspective. My cousins have now been reduced to Facebook acquaintances, whose moments of happiness are now a bunch of shared pics. I look at these grown-up men and women and wonder if we lost more than just our youth. When we meet during grand family celebrations (read weddings) my daughter sees her cousins as just a bunch of annoying kids. It breaks my heart to think that she will not have any stolen mango memories. That she will not shed tears for cousins she never got to know.

I hate to admit that the thought of guests gives me the heebie-jeebies. I turn into my Mom, my mind focussed on the inconveniences rather than the joy of a reunion. Only this time I completely relate to what she felt!

What kind of a lifestyle dictates that we spend our weekends at malls and need to fix up dates to meet our friends? Where neighbours are strangers who exchange pleasantries in the building lift! Avoiding social contacts as we forage for warmth and acceptance from the online world?

Are we heading towards a lifestyle where we have to pay others to listen to our woes, rather than seeking help from the ones we love?

Makes me wonder, if we are becoming too selfish for our good! We have become so possessive about our private space that those who dare to reach out are seen as intruders.

When I had moved to Gurgaon, I thought I would finally be able to meet like-minded people and make more friends. That didn’t happen. When I moved to Brisbane, I thought I wouldn’t make any friends and had mentally prepared myself for loneliness. Guess what? I have made more friends in just three months, than I did in the eight years I spent in Gurgaon.

I think I know why. Thrown out of our comfort zones, away from the cushion of family and friends, we have been reaching out, knowing that the friends we make here will help us tide over the feeling of alienation. I smile more often as I run around doing my errands and when someone smiles back, it lights up my heart like a 60 watt bulb.

I am not ashamed of feeling needy anymore. My shrinking heart is blooming again and it feels so good.