It was the second day of my period yesterday. Insane bleeding, throbbing menstrual cramps, and mood swings paid me a visit again, all at once. I wasn’t feeling so good mentally either....got knocked out in the pre-final round of interview with McKinsey. My heart felt out of sorts and my brain was totally clogged - so much that I wasn’t able to decide on my order for dinner. Once my meal arrived, I quietly wept while gobbling down those dosas. Amma was staring at me, shocked, for I’m a person who only gets delighted at the sight of food. We had gone shopping in the busy streets of T Nagar. The jostling crowd did a really great job testing our patience levels but we somehow managed to finish our shopping getting past every hassle. Completely drained, we fetched a bottle of water and booked an Uber.
Our Uber driver was a really sweet and a cheerful woman. Not only did she make our entire ride memorable, but also made me realise what actually matters at the end of the day. She initially asked us if she could make a pit stop to get some tea, for she was having a splitting headache. We told her to take her own time and to have her tea peacefully. She came back in a jiffy and kept her chit-chat going for the rest of our ride.
My mom asked about her spouse’s occupation, to which she said, “He’s working as an electrician, abroad”. When we chuckled, she said that her husband had abandoned her and that she has been raising her two daughters on her own. She elaborated on everything she went through for the past three years, driving auto for almost 12 hours a day and managing her household all by herself, her commitment to her daughters’ studies and clearing a huge debt single-handedly. What made it even more interesting was her quoting Vadivelu dialogues every now and then, lacing her painful and traumatic stories with witty humour. And thus, without us even being aware, time fleeted away and we reached our destination. We paid her a little more than the actual fare, to be a small part of making the rest of her dreams come true.
That conversation taught me to view things from a different perspective, to smile through pain and to focus on the big picture, rather than fretting about what cannot be reversed. If there are crests, there sure would be troughs. All we could ever do is move ahead, hoping to get on a crest again !