ELECTIONS '98
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My daughter Mansie

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. No, I am not going back to the times of Charles Dickens and his famous first sentence in A Tale of Two Cities. I experienced the best and the worst of time early Monday morning at Bombay's Sahar International airport.

Our 24-year-old daughter, Mansie, who had come home on a month's holiday was returning to her studies in the US. It was wonderful to have her again with us, and dreadful to miss her. The one-month vacation just flew away and as her day of departure arrived all the old tensions over her welfare, safety and future came back once again. This was the worst part of the experience.

What was the best part? Mansie was happy to go back and was confident she would do well in her studies. She had changed universities and was off to the Florida State University for her PhD programme. She told us that in her first two years in the US, she had made mistakes and learnt from them. She had chalked out her future and in a way, I was relieved that the responsibility had slipped out of my hands.

Responsibility and confidence. I guess these are the key words to build one's future, particularly in a foreign nation. What was I doing when I was 24? I was clinging on to a job which I did not like and the future appeared dark. Working as a clerk in an Ahmedabad textile mill at a monthly salary of Rs 150 crippled my dreams. Would I end up as a clerk even at the time of retirement? It was a frightening prospect.

There were no Gulf jobs in those days and no one I knew possessed a passport. Only the mill owners and their family members went abroad. We talked shop all the time. Promotions, additional bonus, scrounging for overtime. I also knew that quite a few of my friends were envious of my job because I worked in a well-established, profit-making textile mill. But I sadly lacked the vision to look ahead, take risks and plan for a better future. The only extra qualification I thought about was learning to drive a truck. Someone told me that truck drivers earned much more than a textile mill clerk!

Well finally I got out of the rut and settled down to do something which I had always wanted to do. Write. It took me nearly 30 years to reach this goal, and time did not stop for anyone. Quite often, I thought whether I had blundered in not making certain moves to improve my prospects when my career was not taking off.

Perhaps that is why I admire the guts and initiative of the younger generation. My daughter, from the time she was in Standard V, decided she was going to study Physics, particularly Astro Physics. We accepted her statement. "Oh, children are like that," I told my wife. "They have their own whims. Didn't I want to be a film hero when I was her age?" But Mansie pursued her goal relentlessly through school, college and university while she completed her MSc. All the while, he was also pursuing opportunities to study Physics abroad. This became her magnificent obsession.

In 1996, she finally won a scholarship and went abroad. Life was totally different, the approach to studies was something new for her. Adjustment came, but rather slowly. Money was another major problem. At home, she lacked nothing, but now she had to balance her budget carefully. Food, accommodation, medical bills, insurance, taxes... She had to buy a car because without one she was almost immobile.

Well, the adjustments were made, the lessons learnt. Then came the opportunity to move to a different university where she could work on her favourite branch of Physics and also make more money. She kept us informed about all these developments. Since we did not know anything about the academic system in the US, we could only advise her to think twice and make her won decisions.

The two years had effected many changes in Mansie. She had learnt to study issues thoroughly. Judge people better and be less gullible. She learnt to keep and run a home. And wonder of wonders, learnt cooking. This daughter of mine, had always shunned the kitchen when she was with us. She used to exclaim loftily that she was meant for better things! Well, after a couple of months in the US, she began asking for recipes.

My wife was amused when her daughter's e-mail messages gave us the news that she had organised dinners for her friends where they were served with delicacies like rasam, sambhar, tandoori chicken and masala. "I wonder how all these tasted like," she observed. "Why not hope for the best," I reassured her.

Yet, in a way, she had not changed all that much. She was still impatient, talked very fast, and gobbled up food. "Do you eat like this in your home?" I asked. "No, because no one there serves food like this," she replied with her mouth full. Mansie continued to quarrel vigorously with her younger sister, who in her absence, pinched and wore some of her favourite blouses and tops. The house was often noisy and in a mess. But then who bothered?

When shall we see her again? I have no idea though she promised another visit in 2001 when her passport expired. The year 2001 is so far away! What kind of life will I be leading three years from now. My wife has a simple philosophy. 'Jo hotha hain achhe ke leiye hotha hain' (Whatever happens, happens for the good). I guess I better start believing that.

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