I had massive arguments with my parents this weekend. Over the usual: how I am not doing anything worthwhile with my life, how I haven’t achieved anything, how I am just wasting their money, and how I don’t appreciate all the sacrifices they’re making for me.

No, nothing new there at all.

I understand where they’re coming from, I do. I understand that my father works very long hours to be able to pay my exorbitant tuition. I understand that my mother has no financial independence and has to rely on my father for every rupee. But, honestly, are they going to blame me for this? I mean, I know they do blame me for this, but do I actually deserve the blame? In my (presumably biased opinion), I don’t. Well, not really. Sure, I could have gone to LSR, like so many of my other friends did, and studied political science or English – they do have wonderful departments, and yeah, I’d made easily made it to those courses and would’ve probably enjoyed them. But that would have meant living at home. LSR is too close to my Gurgaon home to merit living in the hostel or somewhere else. And staying at home was just NOT an option I could’ve dealt with, as the reasons should become clear eventually. Or I could’ve done things I didn’t want to – engineering or medicine., and had a legitimate reason to live away from home. What I didn’t realize at the time of finishing high school, was that there were other ways I could’ve gotten away from home, and studied things I wanted to, without costing my parents the earth. I can’t really be blamed for that – there never was anyone to tell me otherwise. Do you trust a 17 year old to her own future? I trusted myself to it, and made the decisions I could, based on what I knew then.

Sure, R received 100% financial aid from Harvard, and A has 80% at Wellesley, but is it my fault that I didn’t get aid? It’s financial aid, for goodness’ sake, not scholarships. You find me one international undergrad at a private (top 20) US university on scholarship and I’ll eat my figurative hat. Whose fault is it if I didn’t receive financial aid? I don’t know how those offices work, but probably not my fault. Besides, I’ve never asked my parents for a single dollar the entire time I’m at college. If they’d let me have access to my bank account here (which they don’t, by the way), I wouldn’t have to ask them for a single rupee here either. Darn it, I take a full course load, I try to keep my grades up, I work about 14 hours a week, I have multiple leadership positions in college groups/offices, and now I will have the Resident Assistant job, that will pay for room and board. Yes, it would be wonderful if I could support all of this further with a scholarship or two, of perhaps some twenty or thirty grand, but where do I even find those? I’ve looked, believe me, I’ve looked so much. But I just can’t find them. Or I just don’t make the cut.

Well, perhaps. If I were a stronger applicant, I would’ve been accepted at Princeton, not waitlisted, and then, yeah, things would’ve been so much better. After all, my parents could’ve even bragged to everyone about how their daughter was at Princeton, instead of having to mumble “Oh, she studies in the US… in Washington”, only to be mentioned when pressed on the issue of where I study. And, you know, would’ve been so much better for me as well: not having to deal with all the aunties and uncles who automatically label me a failure in their heads for studying at what they think is a no-name American university. Never mind that my program at the SFS is probably every bit as strong as the Woodrow Wilson Center’s at Princeton, or that when I graduate, I will share an alma mater with I don’t even know how many heads of states and governments, and diplomats and the general who’s-who of the political world. When they’ve not heard the name (and that includes my parents), it can’t possibly be worth anything. Hence why I still get surprised looks and questions if they find out I turned down Carnegie Mellon or even Tufts. It seems so strange to me, but that’s how it is. But to be honest, do I ever regret coming to Georgetown (as opposed to whether I regret not knowing how to be a stronger applicant)? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I have had my moments of unhappiness at the school, but they’ve mostly been because of the perception of others in relation to the school, and so much anything to do with the school itself. I’ve liked classes, professors, my guides and mentors, and most of all, my friends. I’ve met the most wonderful people I’ve ever known 9with the possible exception of a few close friends from school) at Georgetown. And Georgetown has allowed me to dream big, really big. Sure, I’d always wanted a career with an intergovernmental organization or major non-profit, or a high-profile policy post (even when I deluded myself into believing I wanted to be an engineer), but I never thought that was actually possible. Not until I got to Georgetown. Georgetown essentially helped restore my absolutely shattered (or was it just non-existent?) self-confidence. It gave me back pride in myself, and I felt like I actually belonged. To get an idea of how much Georgetown means to me, how important being there is to my life: I once cried for hours in the library, studying on a weekend night, when my mother called, and screamed at me, and said they’d have to pull me out of school if I didn’t get my act together. (What act though? Get what together? I don’t even know. But my grades did slip a lot fall semester of sophomore year, though I pulled them back up spring semester).

Then. There’s the gay issue. Which my parents have caught on to, without my ever having come out to them in the traditional sense of coming out. And it’s not looking good so far. Whatever. I’ll deal with that when I have someone I want to get married to; probably not even then. Disapproval hasn’t really STOPPED me from doing what makes me happy, has it? They will be disappointed, but they have always been disappointed in me. I never was the perfect Indian daughter, I never will be.

And, as I have said before, the gay issue is not the only reason why I was unhappy at home. It’s the stifling atmosphere of Indian families, or at least, my family, in general. It’s about this notion of duty to family above personal freedom and privacy, which has always at odds with my sense of understanding the world. It was about seeing my mother with her lack of financial independence, literally begging my father for money. It was about my father not recognizing how his attitudes hurt my mother. It was about seeing my mother as a wasted a potential, a talented woman who could’ve done so much, but didn’t. It was about seeing my dad work for hours and hours, slaving at a profession he hadn’t originally wanted for himself – one he basically “inherited” from his parents. It was about seeing my dad give up his own aspirations and hopes to take care of his parents, and seeing my grandparents continue to favor his brother who lives overseas over him despite that. I couldn’t live like that. I didn’t want to live like that. And I didn’t see a way out except to break convention as early as possible, and fly the nest as soon as I possibly could (and heaven knows I looked for other escape routes – and then finally sought therapy when at Georgetown. Gosh. Frightened that those days could come back). And now, I’m still frightened to see what I left behind. Frightened to see those patterns and stories repeated. Frightened of how they could affect my future and how I am inexorably tied to what I left behind, no matter how many thousands of miles away I may be.

But there are some things I miss too, things from an older past though, not my late teen years. I miss the positive affirmation I used to get from my parents, I miss the times they used to be proud of me. I feel like they have long since ceased to be proud of anything I’ve done, just about when I started realizing what pride in accomplishments actually feels like. And it’s this missing affirmation that makes me feel like a failure more than anything else.

This is also the reason why I value my friends so much. They are the ones that I do get positive affirmation from, they’re the ones that keep me going, that keep me from despair. (Though my parents are capable of holding those very friends against me: she’s at Harvard; he’s at Yale; he won a graduate scholarship to Oxford; she is a Goldman Sachs scholar – why can’t you achieve anything? I mean, hey, my friends are brilliant, in every way, but their brilliance doesn’t preclude my ability to achieve, does it? Sometimes I can’t help but wonder how such brilliant people are friends with me though; it seems surreal, though the rational part of me knows it shouldn’t, because I’m not necessarily any less capable).

A trusted friend once wrote, and I’m paraphrasing here because I’m not sure if quoting from personal communications is ethical, that he was afraid I would allow this “negativity and unjust criticism” that permeates every aspect of my (family) life to inhibit me from achieving my full potential. I worry he might be right. I sometimes worry that I have been broken enough to be afraid of my own dreams now. My mind has been cut into deep enough for the venom (and yes, I think it is venom) to have percolated deep in, seeping into my mind and soul, keeping me from really living up to my own potential. No, I am not trying to please anyone else. But am I unconsciously holding back in my own efforts because I have been told too many times that I’m not good enough, I can’t do it (though only ever by my parents, but aren’t they the people you are supposed to trust the most? Aren’t they the ones that are supposed to know you best?)? Have I started believing it? Or am I so torn because Georgetown’s taught me to not believe it, but these months at home wipe that clean and make me have to start afresh each fall? I do so much, and while, no, I don’t think it’s quite enough, it’s really not insignificant either. When my parents compare me to other people’s children, I wonder really how blind they really are.

And that, in sum, is why life is depressing right now.

 

In sum: My parents need a crash course in parenting and sensitivity. No father should be asking his daughter how she could possibly think she has an aptitude for law. Especially not when he has absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.

 

(Ironic how I wrote the equivalent of a 6 page paper – possibly 25% of some class grade! – in less than half an hour, when I would’ve taken so much longer to write a paper of the same length. What wonders pouring one’s heart out on paper (or keyboard) can do!)

The past few weeks, since I came back home to my family after nine months away at college, have been a struggle. This would be hard to comprehend for a lot of people, because mine is an average stable middle class family, and I should be glad to meet them after all that time, should I not? Well, part of the reason why I have been struggling is because I am not glad at all.

I suppose i have really been struggling with a lot of things for quite some time. Last summer was a probably the most painful time I have ever had to face and there were certainly times when not only did I think I was bipolar (because I could really not figure out why my moods would vary so much) but I was suicidal as well. I'd think up strategies to run away, to use an awkward euphemism; I'd try to consume an entire leaf (twenty or so tablets) of an antibiotic medicine I am allergic to, trying to spark a serious reaction, only to throw it up after a while and just have mild fever and puffiness that I could not explain to my parents. Talking of things i cannot explain to my parents, there is just too much that I cannot. My mother, and to a lesser extent my father, can sense that I am hiding things. Which is why she tries to pry -- she tries to read my email, my text messages, Facebook messages, IM conversations, whatever she can come across. It's frightening.

Well, how do I explain this more clearly? Right now, all I am saying is that I have been struggling but I haven't been able to articulate what I am struggling with. I'd say my sexuality is possibly one of the things I am struggling with, but that is only the most obvious one. Sure, I don't know what to make of the idea that for an Indian kid, marriage is not just a possibility, but an eventuality. And no, not the sort of marriages that have been recently legalized in California and Norway, but marriage between a man and a woman, marriage as a social contract, a familial obligation, all those things. It's hard for me to make sense of it right now, but there's one thing that is perfectly clear to me -- "coming out" is certainly not an option. Not when my family is not just my parents, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents' aunts and uncles and cousins, and a whole extended network of endless relatives that I don't know but that think it is their prerogative to know everything about everyone's lives. See, mine is not one of those liberal Indian families that some of my friends seem to have. It is a regular conservative Indian family that is proud of their "family values" (which, f'ing unfortunately for me, I don't share). So, if I were straight, it would not be acceptable for me to marry a man that was not North Indian. Oh no! The only option for marriage would be a North Indian man, preferably one with whom my match was arranged by my parents. So, heaven forbid, that I would want to spend my life with a woman. Oh no! I guess the core issue here, though, is not my sexuality. The core issue is the conflict between my "Western" outlook and my family's "traditional" outlook.

Now, this is something I find very difficult to express. But it is as if every time I try talking to my parents, we are never on the same page. Even when it comes to simple feminist stances that I might take (for instance, that the husband should play an equal role in looking after the kids; or that women need to be financially independent) my parents get angry. They are unable to understand where I am coming from, and what prompts me to think in these "strange" ways, when the reality I have always seen at home has done nothing to "put such ideas into my head." My mother doesn't work. Financially, she is entirely dependent on my father and I have seen nasty fights flare up between them over sums as small as a thousand rupees (about $25). Every time my parents talk, it's so firmly grounded in their understanding of traditional gender roles, and should I ever try to say anyhting differently, I get screamed at. Yeah, so it's best for me to keep my "feminist inclinations" out of my own household. Kind of contrary to my belief of charity beginning at home (not that this is charity. The way I see it, it's simply reason), but, whatever.

Then there is the issue about my decision to study in the US. I desperatley needed that. My parents did not really want that. They already felt I "getting out of hand" and they were convinced they would lose me completely if I went away to study. Besides, they never hesitate to remind me, though not in those exact terms, how I have failed them. Whom do I blame for this? I cannot help but blame anyone but myself. I should have had the guts to tell my parents from the very beginning that I did not want to study in India, that I wanted the independence, the academic freedom, everything that came with living away from home and studying in a much superior academic system (yeah, shoot me, you stupid overly patriotic folks. But whatever you say, the education at US colleges (at least the good ones) is far superior to that at most Indian ones). I should not have tried to pretend, for their sake, that I wanted to go to IIT. That was one part my foolishness, one part my naivety, and several parts wanting to please my parents. I should have known it was just not going to work. I should have focused on my US applications sooner so that that Princeton waitlist decision had been an acceptance letter, or so that one of these rich schools would have accepted me and given a heap of financial aid. But, f'ed up as things usually are with me, I had the most disastrous admissions results. I don't even know how many nights I spent crying over it, how defeated I felt, how worthless, frustrated, torn up. It was the outside legitimization of my parents' belief that I was just not good enough. I ended up getting into just Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon and Tufts. Good schools, all, but good enough for my parents? I think not. To be honest, good enough for my skewed perceptions? I'm really not sure. So, I decided to go to Georgetown (another decision that made my parents unhappy, because, really, nobody has heard of Georgetown in India, and "what is this international relations thing you want to do?") but Georgetown did not grant me financial aid. Which obviously meant more fights at home.

You know, I absolutely love being at Georgetown, and when I was there I could mostly forget how discontented I was with my life in India. How I had been this close to suicide several times. Georgetown is far more of a home to me than this place ever was, or could be. For a change, I felt like I belonged, even if I am miles away from the stereotype of a Georgetown student. I am "home" for the summer, and the only thing I can think about is going back to Georgetown.

But my parents can't stand me. They can't stand how distant I have become. Every night is fighting and tears and arguments and more tears. I just don't know what to do. Sometimes, I wish my parents would just disown me so i wouldn't have to worry about hurting them so much. Because I know I am hurting them every bit as much as they are hurting me. Though it seems they cannot see how much they are hurting me. I don't think my mother realizes how her comments about how she thinks I don't have any friends tears me apart. She doesn't see how when she says that they must have failed as parents because I didn't get any sanskar (cultural values) and I make friends with the "gays and lesbians". Oh god. It's so f'ing difficult sometimes, and I just don't know what to do.

I try, on my part, to be the perfect daughter. Honors GPA, no alcohol, no drugs, no smoking, so sex, no boyfriends (or rather, girlfriends). I try. I fucking try. But it doesn't work.

Because something in this picture is just fundamentally wrong, and I don't know what it is, and I cannot fix it.