Once in a while life gives you a chance to learn about your kins.
Last week on a trip to Bangalore, I stayed with a cousin. When she was trying to apprise me about her daughters' aspirations, the conversation meandered to my father's educational qualification. I was surprised that she mentioned my father. Surprised because in the last 32 years I had known her she had never spoken of him. She was born six years before his death.
My dad had been dead for 32 years and even mom doesn't bring him into a conversation unnecessarily.
But that morning, my cousin casually let it be known that my dad, who was her dad's older brother, was after all a failed candidate in chartered accountancy. Yes, he had flunked the intermediate exam but had then passed CA and had since done very well in his life.
I didn't have to think too long why the conversation came up. She went on to heap praise on a relative of her husband, who was the financial advisor to a wealthy businessman in her town. She told me the relative, a cousin of her husband, was based in the United Kingdom but had reposed much faith in her husband.
Maturity does a lot of things to a person. I wasn't angry with her assumption but a little out of sorts, wondering who in my father's extended family had given her such a wrong impression of a man who was respected by my mother's family.
My cousin then told me that she would impress upon her daughter to pursue her dream of becoming a CA.
Such conversations are not only amazing but also entertaining at another level. For, later that afternoon, when we went to pick up her kids from school, she returned to the morning's conversation and told her young 10-year-old daughter that her uncle, that is my father, was a CA and that she should pursue her dream. To this the little one piped up, "I don't want to be a CA as I don't like mathematics."
My cousin was now thoroughly embarrassed. "Oh that is because you don't like your math teacher," she said.
At the end of the day, I relived the entire episode. It was a revelation to me that my father had been undervalued by his own family. A couple of my mother's siblings respected him for his graciousness but at least one sibling hated his guts for showing them their place.
Last week on a trip to Bangalore, I stayed with a cousin. When she was trying to apprise me about her daughters' aspirations, the conversation meandered to my father's educational qualification. I was surprised that she mentioned my father. Surprised because in the last 32 years I had known her she had never spoken of him. She was born six years before his death.
My dad had been dead for 32 years and even mom doesn't bring him into a conversation unnecessarily.
But that morning, my cousin casually let it be known that my dad, who was her dad's older brother, was after all a failed candidate in chartered accountancy. Yes, he had flunked the intermediate exam but had then passed CA and had since done very well in his life.
I didn't have to think too long why the conversation came up. She went on to heap praise on a relative of her husband, who was the financial advisor to a wealthy businessman in her town. She told me the relative, a cousin of her husband, was based in the United Kingdom but had reposed much faith in her husband.
Maturity does a lot of things to a person. I wasn't angry with her assumption but a little out of sorts, wondering who in my father's extended family had given her such a wrong impression of a man who was respected by my mother's family.
My cousin then told me that she would impress upon her daughter to pursue her dream of becoming a CA.
Such conversations are not only amazing but also entertaining at another level. For, later that afternoon, when we went to pick up her kids from school, she returned to the morning's conversation and told her young 10-year-old daughter that her uncle, that is my father, was a CA and that she should pursue her dream. To this the little one piped up, "I don't want to be a CA as I don't like mathematics."
My cousin was now thoroughly embarrassed. "Oh that is because you don't like your math teacher," she said.
At the end of the day, I relived the entire episode. It was a revelation to me that my father had been undervalued by his own family. A couple of my mother's siblings respected him for his graciousness but at least one sibling hated his guts for showing them their place.
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