She wept bitterly all day in college. What we thought was that she was over too embarrassed at being scolded by the Head of the Department, but it was merely the jolt that broke Pallabi down and she couldn't stop crying. It was because it was too much for her heart to bear the pain, it was too much for her mind to evaluate - why, why in the world should her own sister not try to understand!!!
She mentioned she was "misunderstood", but I know what it is..... People are all but a part of the rat race today, they don't have time to look, to listen and to understand. Whether a mother, a father, a sister they have love, they have support, they have gifts, everything but understanding for us. They don't care to consider, they simply don't know what we go through, what are our thoughts all about even if it is what was thought of was for their well-being...
Had it been a few years back and I would have been "misunderstood", I would cry, cry and cry and hope -"So what they did not hear me out yet, now they would. So what, they took my flat words the other way round, now they would care to understand my tears." But no! Experience has taught me, they presume and they leave it that way, their minds seem so full.. It's so odd to believe at that instant that these are the people you love, you can't imagine life without them.. But they are undoubtedly the ones who would be right beside me through thick and thin and my friends might not. But my friends are ones who understand me, maybe because they are in my shoes as I am in theirs. Yet, that's no reason why my family should not have space for understanding me.
The metros are so crowded in the morning hours that it loses the sophistication of the country's only underground commutation. But my parents, don't even know about it, although their own daughter travels by it every single day. Hence, they don't understand why I am so tired each day that I sleep an extra-hour in the morning than they do. Instead they refer to me as good-for-nothing, lazy, callous and whatever else their vocabulary can provide. This is the everyday example of "misunderstanding" that I produced and of course, there are some special cases that make my heart ache even to be reminded of.
Alas! What the hell can I do about it?? And I resolve, I don't want to be what they are to me in such circumstances. I'd stop, I'd wait, I'd hear them out, I'd consider, I'd understand them until I have their tears.. I'd think twice, thrice, as many times as possible before I presume... I'd put myself in their shoes, before I'm mad at them.. All because I know how much it hurts not to be cared to be understood by someone so loved and so close to one's heart. I'd defy what it means to be in a family!
