Slice or Toast?

“Would you like to have a slice or toast?” asked my cousin from Armed Forces background, on breakfast table during one of our annual odysseys from Kanpur to Delhi. I stared back, trying to figure out the difference between the two. To me it was plain and simple `bread'.

This incident stands out in my memory and I feel it effectively highlights the difference between upbringing in a metro and a small town.

Our yearly sojourn to Delhi was both an exhilerating and a dreadful time. I obviously used to be excited and used to look forward to the trip. The train journey, car ride, auto (clearly much better than Tempo in Kanpur), shopping at Palika Bazar (it wasnt a shady place then), gifts from relatives etc. etc...trip to Delhi offered a lot of excitment. But the story used to be different once I used to land in Delhi.

An introvert and painfully shy, meeting my cousins and aunts and uncles would be a painful experience. I think I would have had meaningful relationship with them if i was also growing up in Delhi...there was just no common ground. They would try to talk to me in English and I would reply in monosyllables in English or in Hindi. Though I was studying in one of the best schools in Kanpur, I was not exactly fluent in the language.

Every year the trip to Delhi would be preceded by innumerable trips to Lal Bangla market to purchase dress material, which was then stitched either by mom or a tailor. Mostly, before starting, we would have got ourselves a complete new wardrobe. Even then once I reached Delhi, I always thought the clothes were inferior. Today, I can say with certainty that they were just different but who wants to stand out at the age of 10 years old.

I have often wondered how my life would have turned out, if my father hadn't got transferred from kanpur when he did. To begin with I definitely wouldn't have been a journalist. Journalism was not a career option even for children in Delhi at the time and definitely not for Kanpur kids. It was either medicine or engineering and clearly I had no obvious aptitude or interest in either (though I did get 85% in science in XIIth). I think I might have just about managed to become a teacher.

I believe my parents would have been happier or would have had slightly peaceful time while I was in my teens. I don't think I would have been a rebel. Not that children from small town don't. In fact, if I remember right, I displayed signs of a rebellion even in Kanpur, but I don't think I would have had guts to do the kind of things I did like getting my hair permed (my mom actually told me not to come with her till I started looking normal again); getting my hair cut (a deep chasm arouse between me and my parents as a result of this); opting for English honors in college (Papa was livid...the rest is obvious); taking up journalism against my parents wishes etc. etc.

On the flip side, I would have created a havoc in Kanpur if papa had got transferred from Delhi to Kanpur...interesting food for thought ;-)