As a child, on the weekends when my parents would go on vacation, I would often go hiking. It was special for me because I could explore places that the rest of the world were not allowed to see. I would pack a suitcase with a change of clothes and a backpack, start my car and listen to music while I drove to the mountains. As I got older, I moved farther and farther away from the city. I eventually found a spot up north where the hills began.
My parents were barely understanding teenagers when they met each other.
My father moved out of his parent’s house, leaving home at the age of eighteen. On his trip across India, he met my mother in a village. She was crying when he met her, having just left her fiance, as she was not ‘educated’ enough for a traditional marriage. My father, who was trapped in a life he did not like, heard her story and fell in love. He made an arrangement with the villagers for my mother to be able to continue her education and came back a year later.
I remember my father telling me the story of how they met countless times. “She was like the sun, burning bright light into my life.” I would hear him say. “She lit up my heart, she gave me hope. She changed my destiny. I remember saying to myself on that first night, that I could not be happier than I was when I met her.”
My father was a hard working man. He never had a real job until he was twenty-two. He worked for the city and took care of their little neighborhood of houses, plastered with new looking, freshly painted windows. My parents embraced each others hobbies, my mother taught my father how to cook, and he taught her how to talk ‘properly’. They left the customs of their parents. They realized that their passion for adventure would only bring about sullen years for themselves and for their children if they let it go. They were young and optimistic anyway. I was born a year after my parents got married, as my mother said, “I was blooming like a flower that deserved to be plucked.”
My father was from a small middle-class family. His father, a avid painter and art connoisseur, was largely abusive. My father was to study graphic design, my mother had planned to go to school for tourism after she finished her education.
“Don’t shave off your hair,” said my mother who was in the hospital.
“You’ll grow it back,” said my father.
“No, dad. I’ve been cutting it off every other week because my aunt and my mother are always giving me strange looks,” said my mother, suddenly serious.
“Just cut your hair,” my father responded to her.
My mother, scared of his tone, went on cutting it off, “for how long anyway?” she whimpered.
“Not even ten minutes!” my mother responded to her father. “Talk to people and be friendly. Do we have a problem?” she demanded.
“We have too much in common for that,” my mother’s voice was now defeated.
My mother dealt with depression. She always had. My mother was like the sun, her strong personality could burn away the muck that depression introduced into her life. Her dad, while somewhat supportive, as her mother was not much more than a follower, was very harsh on her, pulling her away from education and discouraging her from pursuing a career. He wanted her to become a homemaker and raise a stable family. However, from the first moment she saw my father, my mother forgot about her depression and somehow, some way, she knew that he was the one she was going to spend forever with.
We were living in a small apartment at the time, but my mother was already pregnant with me.