Sincere Apologies

One sentence that has remained with me ever since I watched Laapataa Ladies was “Sapne dekhne ka maafi nahi maangte”- meaning, one doesn’t apologise for dreaming. How many of us live in the opportunity cost of where we are? When we are sitting at home, living with parents, we are wondering why we didn’t venture out to the world, building a life of our own. When we are sitting in college in our favourite class, we are wondering why did we pass on that grad trip with our friends for a better grade? After all, this is the age to travel and I will probably not see these pals again. When we are working in a faraway city, eating soggy cold lunches and making hot water for ourselves even when sick, we wonder why we gave away our parents’ care, even if its seasoned with a lot of scolding.

I personally struggle with what I should be apologising for. When I see yet another photo of a batchmate getting married, I wonder if I owe an apology to my aging grandmother. When I see yet another talented singer exploring thumris, do I owe my parents who spent hours, fees, bus rides and petrol to enrol me to the numerous singing classes, an apology too? How much can one person do, and how much do we owe to the people around us? I am sure no one in my family really thinks about me so much, they just ask me to eat a bit more and not look like a sickly skeleton.

And then I wonder, do the people who go to the best schools of higher education, coming from families just like mine, not feel sorry when accepting “gifts” at their own extravagant marriages? Do they not see that their bride’s family probably spent an entire lifetime saving for a weekend of fun for their folks? Does the thought not even cross their minds, to say “no thank you”? The film is set in a time close to my parents marriage, and even today, I hear things like “oh they aren’t able to find a groom for so-and-so as she has a massive education loan”. Is marriage just a downpayment for some people? Why do the minds that can live with some of the most disrespectful and cruelest things in the world never have the feeling of sorry cross by?

I recently took to sketching to let go of some of these scarier thought spirals as well as real worries. I used to scribble as a kid, drawing trees that would grow apples and oranges and bananas at the same time on our apartment’s walls. When asked, I would say “yes, sometimes that’s possible” perfectly predicting hybrid farming decades ago. Receiving someone’s drawing of you should elicit happiness but so far I have gotten reactions ranging from “yikes”, “oh okay” and yes, a sole “thank you” from the kind Kopi Ong servers at work. My sister thinks it’s better if I don’t bother people like this, so I guess not much progress from scribbling on walls. Sorry for the trouble.

Another fortnight has gone by, with not much to show except for dark circles and what seems to be an iconic RCB win if I look at social media.  As I walk back from my weekly salon-plus-grocery shopping trip with a cup of vanilla ice-cream in my hand, swinging to Endrendrum Punnagai (the Tamil version of O Hum Dum Suniyo Re), enjoying the Sunday evening breeze ,and the vibrant pinkish-blue the sky has taken up, I guess life is not too bad. What’s more, to match my new early morning work timings, my chai skill has improved to “bearable” – a big jump from “watery milk with bitter chai flavouring”.