Day 20- Week 3- Family

52 weeks of Gratitude .. Week 3 is here and the topic is Family

I have a big family, hence i have a lot of people to be thankful to. While I was growing up I have always been taught the values of Family, now grown up I have my own lessons learnt. To me family is most important, when everyone leaves you , when no one has time for you it is family who stands by you always, As they say Blood is thicker than water always.

Yes we have our ups and downs, some nasty experiences with some members of the family have also taught a handy lesson especially when things like property-money come into the picture, but still I do feel that Family is and should mean the most always.

As I have mentioned in a few articles since 17th Dec to 13th jan things have been going very bad and it is usually during the bad times that one tends to realise who is how close to you or who genuinely thinks about you and feels about you, I have been lucky that the phone or the emails or the whatsapp messages have not stopped at all, It never felt that i was alone here in uk or that almost all of the family is back home in India.

I have wished many a times that family was nearby so I could at least sit and Cry my heart out, I have also thought that maybe I need to stop everything i am doing and just go back each time there has always been someone on the other side of the phone ready to listen to me, yes I have friends here but it’s not enough, people have their own agenda here , will give you an example my supposedly BEST FRIENDS in uk came once to see me on the 3rd january and one of them had exactly 6 minutes to spare for me. YET we are the closest or so I thought all these years. Have-not had a Single phone call not that any of that would have helped , All that had to be done had to be done and I did do it all But not having enough family here in UK hurt a lot.

One of the disadvantages of living so far away from family :(.

I mentioned above that I have a big family but sadly now the number is dwindling , many of the older generation have passed away, that’s how life works I guess. I will need to go to India very soon for a few days to fulfil a religious duty and I have promised myself that I am going to Meet EACH AND EVERY member of my family where-ever they are in the country. I am going to forget for the time being the bad blood we have had or spilt especially after my dad passed away, and Just go meet them all and HUG them, Don’t know when the next time will be.

I must say that I am thankful to everyone as each and every member of the family has been so good to me, I am one of the lucky ones who has got Love from everyone, Since I was the first male child in the family I have been spoilt rotten .

My grandfather (both of them)

My Nani spoils me still , I talk to her on phone sometimes she is hard of hearing so can’t understand what I am saying, but she is sweet to say I should shut-up and listen to what she is saying, and she will listen to my replies when I come to see her in India.

My Maasi’s are lovely and my youngest Maasi is so adorable , I made her cry so many times as there is not much of a age difference between us, whenever I went to the village for summer vacation she made sure that i got Hot food, would put an extra dollop of Butter in my food compared to my sister’s or my cousins. The day she got married I remember going up-to her husband and threatening him to make sure he takes care of her or else :0..

All my cousins they are all such lovely human beings, being the eldest had an advantage, in Punjab we have this tradition calling veerji to elder brother, I miss that here in uk not many call me Veerji here. I have bullied my cousins at times, even shouted at them or maybe even slapped but never ever have they retaliated back even now I can vouch they have all grown up to be fine young men and women yet they just listen to my rants when I go on a tangent sometimes.. (Yeah I have my moments too )

I would not have liked to talk about my Chacha(Father’s brother) or Bhua’s (father’s sisters) but that would make me a hypocrite after what i have just written above, They are family too , whatever they have done for obvious reasons after my dad passed away is probably their thoughts, I can’t change that maybe they need the money property etc more than us, so its fine. I still want to say thanks to them because Chachu use to be a good man, he taught me how to ride a scooter and drive a jeep in my early days , he also taught me how to fire a rifle. Bhua’s got married and went to USA, but whenever they came to visit us , they brought a lot of goodies for me jackets,toys, sweets etc. etc. Dont know what has happened to all that love they use to have , maybe something wrong with me , maybe I did something wrong.

My Grandma (Dadi) – I had never ever felt she was my step Grandma, when I was growing up, so much love she had showered upon me, when I was in hostel She would come almost every other weekend to meet me , pampered me , during festivals give me so much money – gifts. My mom was only 16-17 when she had me so its my Grandma who practically raised me as a child, My bhua still complains of the fact that Once me and her daughter were playing in the garden – a snake was seen and my grand ma PICKED me up , running to safety leaving my cousin behind. But again sadly since my grand-pa and my father passed things have changed dramatically, I am no more even welcome to the main house we had when everyone live together.

But still this time when I go , I will make sure I go and take her blessings, even if the other side of the family have threatened to harm me. That doesn’t bother me because my parents my mother and father have always taught me to respect the elders no matter who they are , and the BEST thing they taught me was that no matter what fights the Grown ups had I should always respect them as I did before the fights.

My parents well all i can say is I am thankful they are my parents , WHATEVER,WHOEVER I am is because of them, Whatever I have learned – Earned – Got is all because of all the hard work they both have put in raising me. My parents have both worked very very hard especially since the day they were asked to leave the family house to start in a new house from scratch about a year after my Chacha got married. We started from a humble beginning One room house , as my father did not want to take anything from his father. I have seen some poor times but slowly through hard work my parents raised us. I can proudly say that I have studied in the One of the TOP 5 schools of India in those days.

I am so very thankful to them both, I hope I can live up to their expectations. I pray to god to never let me do anything that would hurt them, and hope sometimes that I have been a good boy in the family and have not hurt anyone deliberately.

I am thankful to god for making sure that I was born in such a beautiful family.