Adolescent years are the best to cherish as these years are sweet and at the same time filled with aches of all sorts. During these difficult teenage years, many of us experience romance, true friendship, what it is to be popular, academic and sporting achievements, heart breaks, relationships – some of which we cherish lifelong and there are others that we regret and yet are valuable to us as we learn significant lessons about life. It is a time when both our positive and negative experiences somehow attain a didactic quality and prepare us for the harsh realities of life as we attain growth and maturation.
It is a time when, even though we are aware of and acknowledge the sacrifices made by our parents, friendship supersedes parental love. We do not have many friends for whom we would engage in a heated exchange with our parents. I had a friend named Priya for whom I battled with my parents, just to be able to attend her wedding. In the neighborhood where I spent my adolescent years, in Coimbatore, Priya’s marriage to a young man outside her community became a sensational news. Rumours were rife and people wasted no time in adding details to their elopement, as they chose to believe it was so, without knowing the real story.
A year later, she came to see me with her first born child in her arms. She was visiting her parents who lived a few houses away in the same street. By that time, I had obtained employment in the teaching industry as an educator at a residential school first and then at a quasi government college and visited my parents only during the weekend. She introduced me to her daughter with pride whose wheatish complexion and soft baby skin were unaffected by the signs of wear and tear as she was untouched by the harsh weather conditions. It was summer and I remember how she had complained about the heat and its impact on her daughter who displayed an intolerance to high temperatures . She pronounced her name, Nidhithra, tastefully.
Before migrating to Australia, I ran into her a few times only to realise that as a mother she was interested in conversing only about play school, her daughter’s progress at Perks complex which comprised of a swimming pool, tennis grounds etc then. Her efforts had not gone in vain. Recently when I tried to find her on social media, I found photos of her daughter who has become a tennis player. Being a nationalist, she has had a few wins and I think I am correct in saying that she is enrolled at a tennis university. My innocent looking friend is a business woman today owning an eye wear store which explains her Optic Planet profile on Linked In. I suppose, in her case, the saying, “Dreams are the tiny seeds from which tomorrow grows” has come true. I wish her daughter, Nidhithra, all the best in all her future enterprises.
A Writer's Exposé 