I don’t know who stepped into my life and at what point in time to make a difference in my life to become who or what I am today. I got connected to the world through them and their eyes and ears before I could develop my own. The recollections of how and when I established those connections are hazy. Barring certain milestone events that I could remember, the impact of those connections were not felt till much later in life. They are, therefore, indeed strange connections!
My recollections going back to recognize my mother in my life as the person who wanted me to step into the school system without any compromises – may be when I was just turning four. My recollections of asking questions that an adult would ask could have been around the same time. I remember my mother telling me that those are not my concerns.
My recollections going back to recognize my father in my life as the person who wanted me to make learning and getting educated as my central piece of growing up as kid may go back to just being a six year old or a seven year old.
Those connections were very simple then. But it got murkier when I started recognizing grandpa and grandma in the whole scheme of growing up as a kid and incorporate them in my learning with few more restrictions that I was not aware of till then. I realized very soon that my father’s sister son is also living with us but he is legally blind. Even strange was that my grandpa walks with a stick, but cannot use his left hand – always wondered why it was so till much later in my life.
Let me add few more recollections to that. I tried many a times to remove my set of teeth like my grandma without knowing that she had dentures. I wasn’t sure why I do not see my father till late in the night, but I see my mother around me, and my grandparents the entire day – engaged in all sorts of activities from cooking, bathing, dressing and playing.
Even though my connections to the world were increasing through these immediate connections around me, I did not know about other connections till such time I boarded a train that took a long time to reach a place where my mother was greeted by a large number of people who were her brothers and came to know later that they are my uncles and aunties. I also came to know that I have another set of grandparents from my mother side. It was all overwhelming, but I did not care as I was given a free ride to do whatever I wanted to do – meaning thereby – just play, eat, sleep till the holidays were over.
The life was very simple then – only connections I had then were all human beings – connected to me thorough my parents. I had no idea of a television, or a telephone, or a cell phone, or internet or a computer or any thing like that. It was indeed a very simple world that I stepped into when compared to my kids.
With a globally connected world where as a two year old I can now learn on an iPad, see a babysitter singing lullaby to me from miles away, watching Sesame street characters on the television who don’t look like anyone around me and watch my elder brother playing a game on the television with strange creatures and places that I don’t normally see around, I think I have stepped into a world where I need to make much stranger connections than what my dad stepped into.
I am just a two-year old – so don’t ask anything about my kids!