The little cares that fret me…

Scary how caring gets the better of me. I seem to struggle with everyday stuff everyday. Guess this happens when you grow up in a home full of people minding everyone’s business all of the time and their own business some of the time.

Parents taught us (me n little sis) to put others before self. Something like love your relatives, neighbours, friends, acquaintances, local grocer, chemist, cobbler, sabjiwalla, autorickshaw wallas…….the list is close to infinite. If the world awaited us and our caring, how could we shirk away?!

So it came to be that on a lazy Sunday noon, R and I would patiently wait our turn at the local hair cutting saloon (that’s what they were called before becoming Hairstyling Salons) to trim our tresses and just when either of us were to climb the fateful revolving chair and don the black plastic cloak, the whiny pesky little boy standing right behind our mom would holler and mom would quickly hustle us out of the way and plonk the runny-nosed imp on the chair all the while smiling gleefully at the brat’s mother. “Its ok, let him sit…bechara” she would say indulgently. And would turn to us and mutter, “He has short hair, it will get done faster”. And we would watch the pest slyly look at our reflections in the mirror and smirk I could have punched him on his nose then n there but then all-pervasive forgiveness was another virtue worth dying for.

We soon realized that shying away from caring for or about or with others was as good as cold blooded murder. Dutiful daughters that we were, we were often asked to feel the pain of a neighbor’s dental cavity recently filled, understand the hardship of the obese girl in the post office who had to trudge with her thighs rubbing violently against each other, appreciate the mind behind the balding pate and get pecked on the cheek by pan-chewing aunties. Love overfloweth and we drinketh from it in gulps. Choke..gurgle…….

But it hasn’t been smothering all the way. Somehow caring for other people and bothering about their comfort and happiness over the years has become so ingrained…it no more feels like an extra effort. Yes, the tears flow easy and the heart gets bandaged often but its still ok. Thanks mom & dad. We’ll try n leave the world a better place.

Not too surprising that the F in INFP (of Myers-Briggs fame) come naturally to me. :)