jut a rant
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was one of our monthly outings when we were kids. It was on an overhead bridge in the city. I remember which bridge it was exactly as well. We were walking to the chinese restaurant for dinner and at the end of the bridge i saw an old man. He was injured, homeless and reeked of urine. He sat there in the darkness begging. I remember Appa giving him some loose change and i remember so clearly feeling like i needed to throw up. When I was young and even now TBH everytime i get very emotionally disturbed I feel like throwing up. I could not eat that day, not because I was not hungry but because I hated charity. I hated the fact that we were better off than that man who had literally nothing. I hated it!
The second time i felt this was when my grandfather passed away and for one of his death anniversaries we were taken to a childrens home in KL. I think it was the where Sai School is now. I remember how me and my cousins were made to serve the children candies and how happy they were to receive the candies from us. I hated it again. I hated that they needed to wait for people like us to give stuff to them. I hated the fact that we had parents and they did not. I hated it!
The third memory that comes to my mind was my first trip to India. Yes like for most people India assults all your senses at once, but what stood out most to me even in Prashanthi Nilayam was the poverty. This was way before i knew the dynamics of how begging worked in India but we had taken our children to the poorest of villages where people lived under tents and had litterally nothing. The children had saved over the year to bring stuff for the people in these places, and people pushed and shoved and literally attacked the teens for the stuff. That was scarry...how little they had that such small things meant so much. I hated it!
How come none of these acts of service made me happy when they should have. When service is supposed to give you joy, i just kept thinking how would it feel to be in a space where love is given in such a temporary manner and then gone the very next moment. Last year when Murali and I went to an orphanage and the children came running to us mentioning donor.. donor. I felt soooooo Damn horrible. A child should not seek out love and hugs from strangers, a child should not look at every new person as a potential solution to a problem, this was so horrible.
I remember as kids we would have the most amazing teachers come volunteer from Australia in our school. Their blond hair and accents and their fancy songs and activities, made going to school so much fun. Everyone envied the classes who got those Ausie volunteers to teach them English. But a couple of months would pass and eventually the Ausie blond angels would need to go home and I remember how we cried. Literally the whole class would be in tears for the whole day. I remember how we would take their addresses promising we would write, but i bet have 30, 8 year olds writing to you was not something a hip Australian volunteer teacher would like to spend their time doing. Needless to say after a few months, our broken hearts would mend and we would go back to life.
Now imagine if you did not have parents, or anyone in your life and this amazing person who is so nice, caring and loving was someone you finally gave your heart to picks up and leaves after a couple of months never to return, How would that feel.
I never want our kids to face that. I will protect them from it. They will grow up in an environment of stability where they know that their parents are here for good. They will not see us come and go. We will be there always. They will know that our love is constant and our love is permanent. They will know that we would never abandon them. We would always be there for them when they need us. Makes me think that the volunteers that we get would have very specific roles. They will be teachers and they will be only allowed to engage with the older children who have the maturity to understand who they are.
We will not be a charity and we will do no charity. We will be a family, a normal functional modern family. We might not be the most common of family models but we will be a family. Im also thinking of the number of children we will be able to have at any one time. It should be as many children as i can remember and give individual attention to. I should be able at all times to tuck each one of them into bed and be able at all times to wake each one of them up in the mornings. I should be able to feed every child with my own hands and be able to talk to every teen one on one at all times. I know it sounds impossible but I must be their constant and I want your to be their constant as well baby. I dont know how we are going to make this work and I dont know what the hell im even saying in this blog but we have to make it work.
The second time i felt this was when my grandfather passed away and for one of his death anniversaries we were taken to a childrens home in KL. I think it was the where Sai School is now. I remember how me and my cousins were made to serve the children candies and how happy they were to receive the candies from us. I hated it again. I hated that they needed to wait for people like us to give stuff to them. I hated the fact that we had parents and they did not. I hated it!
The third memory that comes to my mind was my first trip to India. Yes like for most people India assults all your senses at once, but what stood out most to me even in Prashanthi Nilayam was the poverty. This was way before i knew the dynamics of how begging worked in India but we had taken our children to the poorest of villages where people lived under tents and had litterally nothing. The children had saved over the year to bring stuff for the people in these places, and people pushed and shoved and literally attacked the teens for the stuff. That was scarry...how little they had that such small things meant so much. I hated it!
How come none of these acts of service made me happy when they should have. When service is supposed to give you joy, i just kept thinking how would it feel to be in a space where love is given in such a temporary manner and then gone the very next moment. Last year when Murali and I went to an orphanage and the children came running to us mentioning donor.. donor. I felt soooooo Damn horrible. A child should not seek out love and hugs from strangers, a child should not look at every new person as a potential solution to a problem, this was so horrible.
I remember as kids we would have the most amazing teachers come volunteer from Australia in our school. Their blond hair and accents and their fancy songs and activities, made going to school so much fun. Everyone envied the classes who got those Ausie volunteers to teach them English. But a couple of months would pass and eventually the Ausie blond angels would need to go home and I remember how we cried. Literally the whole class would be in tears for the whole day. I remember how we would take their addresses promising we would write, but i bet have 30, 8 year olds writing to you was not something a hip Australian volunteer teacher would like to spend their time doing. Needless to say after a few months, our broken hearts would mend and we would go back to life.
Now imagine if you did not have parents, or anyone in your life and this amazing person who is so nice, caring and loving was someone you finally gave your heart to picks up and leaves after a couple of months never to return, How would that feel.
I never want our kids to face that. I will protect them from it. They will grow up in an environment of stability where they know that their parents are here for good. They will not see us come and go. We will be there always. They will know that our love is constant and our love is permanent. They will know that we would never abandon them. We would always be there for them when they need us. Makes me think that the volunteers that we get would have very specific roles. They will be teachers and they will be only allowed to engage with the older children who have the maturity to understand who they are.
We will not be a charity and we will do no charity. We will be a family, a normal functional modern family. We might not be the most common of family models but we will be a family. Im also thinking of the number of children we will be able to have at any one time. It should be as many children as i can remember and give individual attention to. I should be able at all times to tuck each one of them into bed and be able at all times to wake each one of them up in the mornings. I should be able to feed every child with my own hands and be able to talk to every teen one on one at all times. I know it sounds impossible but I must be their constant and I want your to be their constant as well baby. I dont know how we are going to make this work and I dont know what the hell im even saying in this blog but we have to make it work.
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