Written by Aadithyaa
Hi! Yes, I broke the fourth wall straight away. So what do you think this piece is going to be about? Another lovey-dovey picture of reality that people like us can only dream of? Yes, it's precisely going to be that. So let's start …
It's was 10 P.M …
It was time for me to make my ritual phone call to my father. Talking about the things we have talked about for over a year now. How is the weather? Did you eat? Everything is fine right? And my reply constantly remained "Yes". Yes, the weather is good. Yes, I ate dinner. Yes, everything is fine. Then just like a professional timer in a 100m race, I timed the calls for a week and guess what, the calls ended exactly at 30 seconds everyday that week.
It was 10 P.M again ...
But today, it was different. The phone showed “1:08:18” in the duration section of the call and my life changed forever. For a change, it was my father who broke the fourth wall. He revealed what he truly felt for me. He did what most Indian parents don't and that's why I refer it as, 'The call that changed my life'. There was no crying, no filmy lines ... but the emotions, they were indeed true. He said, “I don't know what's wrong, but listen, You are in a new place. After a year, this place may not be new for you, but it still is for us, and it always will be until you're back here. Maybe I should have said this way before but ... You will meet new people and you will piss off a few of them, but just believe in yourself. Just make sure that you do, what you have to and you do that well. There must be hundreds of people in college and you can never make everyone happy and don’t even try to. You will find your set of friends, if you haven't already. You will have the time of your life in college. You may not realise it now but these are the moments that you will remember. ‘Marks’ and ‘Syllabus’, they are all important, but I would rather like you to be a good human being scoring lesser GPA than being a foolish one scoring a 10. While you will be climbing the ladder of success in any field you want, we will be there, and we will be there for you. You will fall and we, as parents will let you fall so that we can guide you, tell you - You can do this, and you can do that. At the end of the day, however, you are the decision-maker. We are just the cushions beneath that ladder but the ladder is yours and you are for yourself. One more thing, don’t let anybody, anybody for the matter of fact, take away the ‘You’ from ‘Yourself’. Never lose your self-respect.” And then he did that one thing which proves why Indian men are the best. After breaking all kinds of walls he said 'Ok, talk to your mother now. Good Night’.
I still don't know why he said all this ... Is that a question you have as well? It's because this piece was never about what he actually said. This piece was about what ... I wanted to hear.