Life at 22
Disclaimer: If you have a strong belief system on supernatural powers, please do not read this article. If you continue to read and I raise some uncomfortable questions, please do not try to reason them. These are my personal views.
I started this year with a high note, spending a semester abroad(and mind you, from where I come from, this was unheard of). I worked with one of the biggest European scientific collaboration called LOFAR (LOw-Frequency ARray), and I got accepted for my Ph.D. in one of the best Universities on the planet. I am now part of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, working on a prestigious funded project. At the beginning of the year, I thought to myself, ‘this was going to be one of the best years of my life’. But little did I know of all the things that were about to unfold.
Around mid-march, all the international flights were shut down, and I was stuck in the Netherlands, away from everyone who I ever loved, and with an expired Visa, expired housing contract, and expired health insurance. I tried to solve one problem at a time, with constant uncertainty in everything I did, not knowing what the next day would bring to the table. My flights got canceled three times in a row in two months, compelling me to pack-unpack-repack multiple times. Although, my research did not have a direct impact due to the on-going pandemic mainly because I was able to completely shift all my work to a remote station, from home without any logistical or technical issues. I could have spent all these days sobbing about not being home, not being with my family while my friends eat mom-made food every day. Instead, I decided to enjoy what’s under my control and not go crazy about something I don’t have in hand.
Finally, in June, I took one of the chartered flights that the Indian Government arranged for stranded citizens. So after all this fiasco, I was finally home in July, spending time with my parents. I was very excited to start grad school in August (although, that took a ton of back-and-forth emailing because I had not officially graduated, which was delayed due to COVID). Also, did I mention that the semester was going to be online, 12.5hr apart? The sleeping cycle was going to be haywire for the rest of the year.
Being stranded, getting rescued, quarantining was not even close to the worst thing that was about to hit. Just when grad school was starting (the same week), all of my family including myself were tested positive for COVID. My parents and my brother were admitted to the hospital and I was at home, thinking of all the possible outcomes of this. I defended my bachelor’s thesis 10 mins after I heard that my dad was shifted to ICU. I kept it together until the presentation was over, and then I broke down.
Three days later, my brother and mom came back home, still very week, and trying to process the situation. We all wished for one thing: that dad should come back home safe and sound. We did everything that anyone told us to do: medical, psychological, and devotional. Someone told us, Ayurveda works best, got those meds in as fast as we could. Someone told us to pray and wish for his recovery, we did. People told us of different Gods and promises we could make to get him better. We did make those promises. If he gets better, we’d go to the temple and do a handful of other things. We literally did everything that we were told to do so. But all we heard from doctors was that his condition wasn’t improving. Doctors just kept increasing his oxygen requirement and we were hoping for a miracle to just undo everything. I kept video-calling him multiple times a day, but he could not speak much. Then there was a time when doctors told him not to speak, so he’d just give me a thumbs up for everything I told him. I’d keep telling him of the great things at my new grad school, trying to lift the moment up a bit. And then there was another night of uncertainty. Not knowing how he was doing, and incomplete information from the doctors about his condition. None of us were allowed to go see him. I will not go into details of how it happened, but he was no more the following day, I do not remember exactly, but I was probably the last one to video-call him.
It was the same day when I began my grad school, the day India celebrates one of the biggest festivals, and the day I turned 22. Quite an irony huh? The day before, I remember telling myself, that if something wrong were to happen, I’d stop believing in God. I’d stop believing in someone I’ve never met and expect to solve my problems. I told this to my brother, and he said, it’s probably best we not talk about it and wait until the elderly of the family come talk to us. The bigger irony though, is that no one came, not because they didn’t care (actually, do they?) but because they probably did not want to. I waited for weeks, that someone from my extended family would come and I could talk about what I was going through. I obviously did not want to impose my feelings on my mother and brother, because I knew they were going through the same pain. So I kept my ears open to whatever they had to say. My mom was very miserable, so I kept giving her the examples of all the great women of history, some of whom happened to have lost their partners, but still kept going. Some days, these stories helped, and on some days they did not. It was almost like taking care of a child and telling her stories of bravery and success even when things got out of hand.
I read somewhere that ‘Tragedies are the pillars on which life hangs’. Yes, my life choices have changed in the past months. Yes, I have realized that nothing matters other than my close family. Yes, I have realized that everyone else just tries to take the best of us, and not stand by us when we are miserable and in pain. Yes, I have disowned those people who I thought were family, people who I thought would be right beside me when I needed them the most. And Yes, I have stopped believing in God.
Thousands of years ago when people could not explain eclipses, earthquakes, floods, and drought, they thought there could be some super-natural power that controls all of these unexplained events. They then started fearing this super-natural being. People today just cash on that fear. My dad taught me everything that I know of God today. I’d call God for energy and motivation in my stressful situations, and I’d always come out of it, doing well. When things went down, my inner mind just stopped believing that someone would help me come out of difficult situations. Recently when I was in one of those stressful situations, I did not pray, not by choice, but sub-consciously. And I still came out of it. So why should I believe in someone that nobody has ever met, and expect that my problems would go away? Nobody comes to rescue when you most need it, not friends, not family, not God. It’s just us, our heart and brain, and those of our loved ones.
Our dinner table has an empty chair ever since. He always asked me to take him out for dinner with my first paycheck but that never happened. So when I finally took my mom and brother out for dinner last week, I just donated his part of the bill to someone in need. Everything that I thought I’d celebrate, I did not. So what did I learn this year? To say I had a bad year is an understatement. I think I now understand life differently, that only family matters, that there are only a handful of people that care about me, that education and work are just a way to support the family and the community we live in. What really matters is how we face the challenges that life throws at us. I have been suicidal multiple times this year, but I have realized, I can’t run away from problems and grief. I have to do everything I dreamed of and everything we dreamed of, as a family, with my dad. I have to be that person he can be proud of, I owe it to him for the life he gave me. And everyone else that I thought was part of the bigger extended family, are not family anymore. I am glad that I am starting a new life with the changing year and that I could make a new home, meet a bunch of new people, and I can leave behind everything and everyone that hurt me in the last few months.
— Akshatha K Vydula
