I am brown but I am privileged, privileged enough to have a family, friends and an education. This privilege we take for granted, treat it like an old toy that is forgotten. This privilege was not blessed upon my parents and does not find many others. When there is privilege, we grumble, we become toddlers screaming on top of our lungs for everything in sight, we cry over something that even we are not able to comprehend.
If I were to ever share my share of problems with someone who does not have the gift of privilege, he would scoff at me or stay silent, because mine would be the problems he would gladly trade for his. Now, I am a hypocrite when I am saying that we should all realize how blessed we are and stop accusing life all the time because I happen to be the epitome of a faultfinder who is blind to her privilege. However, I am trying, and this article is one step towards making myself and others like myself realize how we sometimes take life and its gifts for granted.
When I forget these morals and start perceiving my life not any different from hell, my parents always seem to bring me back to my senses and for that, I should be grateful, grateful for their guidance and grateful for their very presence in my life.
My father, a man who I admire and look up to, did not have it all when he came into this world, he did not come into this world with a silver spoon that he was able to afford for his kids. He entered this world shuddering, in the month of December into a house that was the size of my dorm room.
When it was time for him to go to school, my grandfather, another great man who is unfortunately not in this world anymore, made sure that poverty did not stop his son from receiving the education he deserved. When the kids in school, showed up with a different item in their lunchboxes every day, my father, enjoyed the pakoras his mother sold outside the school.
After working multiple jobs at multiple places, he managed to go to college, Law school, he managed to make every single effort by his parents and himself count. Now, when I ask him, my father who is now a respectable judge, how he felt going to a school where everyone had a lunchbox, he tells me he doesn’t remember because all he can think of is how hard he had to work to make ends meet.
When life is hard, one cannot afford to complain, because the time spent complaining can be used to make life easier. When I am not having the best time, when all I can think of is how someone hurt my feelings or how lonely I get at times, I love coming back here, I love coming back home, because I need this story to be told to me, I need this story to bring me back to reality, to humility.
