On the Outside Looking Indian by Rupinder Gill

Author:Rupinder Gill [Gill, Rupinder]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101575253
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

(leaving) the office

For the next week I felt like hurling myself at my boss’s feet to beg for mercy, but I stuck to my guns. I had been cautious and practical my whole life and it was time to take the opposite approach. Don’t underestimate how much you change once you achieve a goal. With every swing of the racquet, every tap step, and every minute behind the wheel, I was becoming more confident and ready to tackle the next step.

Sure, my goals were not as grand as trying to climb a mountain, but that is what made the victory that much sweeter to me. These were things I had simply ruled out as experiences that I had simply missed, with no chance of recovery. I had defined myself as that person who couldn’t swim and had never been to Disney World, but now I was beginning to understand that I could still create those memories and redefine myself. It was a snowball effect of my newfound confidence that gave me the sheer audacity to walk away from my job into total uncertainty.

I told my parents that I had taken a leave of absence because Indians cannot leave paying work unless they have been dead at least a week and even that can be considered a flimsy excuse. I knew I was doing the best thing for myself, but thirty years of experience told me that my parents weren’t the type of people who would chuck responsibility for adventure and personal growth. Had they been students in Robin Williams’s class in Dead Poets Society, the second the kids jumped up onto their desks to “Seize the Day!” my parents would have sprinted out of the room to get the headmaster.

Also, old habits die hard and I guess a part of me still felt a bit guilty admitting that I had thrown away stability and responsibility to indulge a whim. This had never been an option in my parents’ lives. No doubt my father would have loved to continue the classes he took at the University of Toronto and become a professor in Canada, as he had been planning to do in India. But he had to work to make money for his family, so it wasn’t an option. My mother and father never went on vacations, they didn’t have expensive cars or jewelry, and I could count on one hand the number of times they had ever eaten in a restaurant in their lives. One meal with my father drinking gravy like soup would substantiate this claim for any nonbelievers.

On their meager salaries, they saved to have enough money to help their children out with their college expenses. And here I was spitting on their very belief system by putting a fantasy before reality and responsibility. But in the end, I knew it was the right thing to do, for myself. My parents would have to make peace with my decision.

Taking a leap of faith had a wonderful effect on me.

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