I recently added a dear friend Broom's birthday party in a lovely, posh Indian restaurant in one of the most fashionable parts of London. It was a surprise party and her partner had gone to great lengths to keep it secret. The group of people she got together was lovely – a bunch of her cousins and a couple of her friends. The evening was perfect – there was good chemistry between the group even though a lot of people were meeting for the first time, a lovely setting with exquisite food, lots of drink and a delicious cake with all of us joining in to sing the customary ‘Happy Birthday’ song. I get embarrassed quite easily and I was so glad that it was not my birthday. I came home, feeling a wee bit melancholy in spite of having a wonderful time.
Broom had such a nice group of cousins - who all happened to live in the same city, got along so well, had so much fun together and had such a great feeling of camaraderie amongst themselves. It made me think about my own relationship with my cousins and I could not help but notice the drastic differences.
I have just one cousin from my mother’s side of the family, who lives in this country. We share a strange relationship – I don’t consider her close to me at all, yet she chooses to tell me stuff about her own life which nobody else in the family knows about. I am not sure why she does this either because I don’t think she considers me close either. For instance, when she went on a gap year trip to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, I was the only one who knew about Vietnam because my uncle would not have let her go otherwise. So for the time she was away, I used to keep in touch with my uncle on her behalf and pray that she would return safely, because my uncle would have undoubtedly killed me if something had happened to her. And now, I am the only one who is privy to the fact that she has a boyfriend. Yet she will never make any effort to come and meet me or speak to me or for that matter keep in touch when she is away.
On my father’s side I have numerous cousins, but none that I am close to. Most of them live in India and within a fairly small radius of each other. My father was the only one among his brothers who ventured out of Tamil Nadu and I think that had a big part to play. All my other cousins met much more frequently than we did and are far closer to each other. Though we went to our ancestral house for almost every single vacation when we were younger, that stopped as we grew older because of increased workload from school and other commitments. Also as we grew older, we realised that we did not have that much in common with my cousins anymore and my brother and I would insist that we did not want to go to our hometown anymore for our holidays. We preferred to spend it in Bombay, with our numerous friends. Eventually, over time my parents stopped taking us there and our already fragile relationship with our cousins only deteriorated.
Another reason is none of my cousins ventured out of their homes for work either. They are all still confined to the places they grew up in. None of them made an effort to come to Bombay to spend time with us, it was always us going there. They are still very warm when we go and visit them, but we just don’t share anything in common. I know they care for me, but they probably don’t get me either – we are just too different. I would not be able to have a conversation with them where I could discuss what I am doing because they would not understand. I have tried in the past, but they don’t get it.
My friend’s cousins were so attentive to her and were really interested to find out all about her friends. They seemed to genuinely care for her happiness and were quite upset to find out that there were bits of her which they knew nothing about. They wanted to be a big part of her life and had no qualms in quizzing us about her to know more about the aspects they did not know about. Above all, their protectiveness and love really surfaced all through the evening and I could not but help think how lucky my friend is.
5 comments:
if it's any consolation - they can be ROYAL pains too.
but i know what you mean, at the end of the day i'm glad they're part of my life.
You touched on a raw subject for most people. We all feel the same way about some part of our relations either with friends or family. I get along very well with a friend but she lives 30 minutes away. She moved there as her dh has very close friends from childhood, college, all gathered there together, so they are all a 'masth' group and they just pop into each others house, just are there for each other all the time. There is so much camaraderie between them. So when i meet her friends at her daughter's party, navratri , etc, they are all chatting, dancing, yes dancing with each other, playing antakshiri and the shy southindianness inculcated prevents me from being so noninhibited + they are a close group. I love dancing btw. So i do pine away for this great gang of friends who have gone beyond judging each other phase to accepting and having fun and helpful phase. I do long for my singleworking days when you, at the end of the day hang out with a big group of friends, roomies, etc and just having fun. So now married and kids, you realise , you do need a large gang or atleast a small one to have that roaring laughter, party kinda fun, bindaz, pop into each other, be there for each other kinda fun.
My dad was the first one to go abroad amongst his brothers too .. the only one actually while the others are still in India and mostly Madras ... growing up, the kind of relationship you describe with your cousins when you visited .. I could relate.
Very well said, and I agree with you about Broom's cousins.
nicely written. i can relate. as you know, i have very close relationships with my cousins, aunts and uncles. when we get together, we have the best time. Growing up, two of my aunts lived in the same building as us and now their kids and my brother have all bought flats in the same building! i always feel jealous when i hear they all got together without me.
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