I recently moved to a hostel to pursue my MBA. The moment when my parents waved me goodbye and left in their cab was utterly painful. My eyes welled up with tears as I watched their cab disappear from sight. Never in my life had I ever thought that moving to hostel would be this tough. My mother used to tell me occasionally, “You will realise the importance of home when you go to hostel,” whenever I would yell at her for something. And I would act nonchalant thinking that I am old enough to live without my parents. Sometimes, I would feel so annoyed staying at home with them. I would feel living at my home ends my social life. I would count days until I could leave my house just so I could have enough freedom.
But, somehow things changed in the last couple of months. After we got to know the exact date of my move to the hostel, I started perceiving things differently. I saw my parents differently. The food my Mom cooked tasted different. I am a person who usually likes to go out and chill. But, spending afternoons watching boring documentaries in the TV with my parents became my favorite thing. I usually like watching something while having a meal. But, I sat with my parents at the dining table during every meal and honestly, we had the heartiest conversations. I usually take pictures of food whenever I am out in a fancy restaurant, but there was a shift in my photography when I clicked pictures of Dal – Chawal with Papad and Achaar made by my Mom. I accompanied my parents in cleaning the house rather than plugging in my headphones listening to Taylor Swift.
No matter how old we get, moving away from our parents is very tough. Not because we have to wash our own clothes, clean the room by ourselves or eat hostel food. But because leaving our parents leaves a different kind of wound in our hearts. It makes us realise that there is no one in the world except my Dad who would wipe my scooter clean & refill fuel just because I have to go on a long drive. There is no one in the world except my mother who would runningly bring a water bottle and pack me snacks just because I have to hang out with my friends for a day. The love of our parents is unconditional. No love can ever surpass it. They do not love us because of how we treat them, how big of a “red flag” we are, how we look or how we study. They love us because we are who we are. No matter how many million times we have hurt them, their love has not decreased. And that, to me, is unconditional love.
I think each one of us should leave our parents’ house at least once in our lives. Because leaving them makes us realise that how delicately they had us sheltered in their cocoon of love. We realise the worth of our parents. Parents who can fight the whole world for us – parents who work relentlessly for 30-40 years just to spend their whole life’s savings on our expensive education so that we can pursue our dreams. They flood our fridge with three kilos of mangoes right after that one little utterance from our mouths: “I love mangoes.” Where else can we get this kind of love?
We visited a resort for an outbound orientation program last week. To keep us fully engaged in the orientation, our phones were taken away for a couple of days. When we got them back, every student immediately started texting or calling someone. During his speech, the honorable Director of our B-School mentioned that it is good if we are texting our parents to let them know we are alright, but we really need to check whether we are texting somebody else instead of our parents. And I completely agree with his words. The parents who prioritize us before themselves, the parents who forget what their own favorite food is just so we can order what we like, the parents who deliberately ask us about our friends just to be included in our world, the parents who invest their life’s savings on our dreams, the parents who grieve when we fall; do not those parents deserve a little bit of love from our side?
I was throwing tantrums to avoid going to Nursery just two days back, and boom, here I am today, longing for home in my hostel room during my MBA. Like they say, days are long, years are short. Life is very short, and we are living it for the first time. So, it is natural to fumble and make mistakes during different stages of life. But if there is one thing we can do right, it is to spend as much time as possible with our parents, making them feel loved.
And after all, no street-side, lambi line wali Chhole Bhature can ever surpass the feeling of Maa ke haath ke Parathe dipped in hot tea. It is never about the taste. It is always about the feelings hidden behind every little thing our parents do for us — the same feelings that, slowly and quietly, have turned my hostel room into my second home.
~ Written by Smaranika Singh
