Recently, I encountered a time travel storyline in a drama series, about a girl who went back to change the fate of her loved ones and her own. There wasn’t anything about the drama I considered relatable or entertaining. But something inside me shifted. I came to uncover some corners in my mind that I actively avoided. There were memories I’d rather not relive, parts of me I wish I could treat better, grief and pain I’d paused for the time being.
By the time I finished the series I cried buckets for no apparent reason. It made no sense as I am not someone who wishes to change my past. In fact, I am very clear that every event in my life pitched in to make me capable of handling my situations today. But it was a revelation on human nature. Of the part of me I longed and struggled to understand - The why.
Why we do what we do, why we act the way we do. While popular takes say we live to be happy, truth is we live because we are scared of death. We worry, for us and our dear ones. And why do we marry? Sure, it’s a stable structure for human well-being and raising responsible citizens. But more than that it’s simply to feel like we are not alone. To have someone commit with us until “death do us part”. It may or may not be a genuine commitment but if we could believe it to be true at least for a moment, we hope it could give us strength to face this brutal reality of the human experience.
Irrespective of what changes and what remains from our past, our memories live on. These memories become our narratives and later, the history of our progeny. And if we have no progeny? Would our peers really remember us the same way? I think not. Do we not want to be remembered? I believe otherwise; I don’t believe a single person truly wishes to be forgotten. Social media is proof. We take, store and post pictures of the most random moments which we may not even take a second look at. That’s how scared we are of forgetting and being forgotten. We “share” the things we adore, we look for forums to “connect”, we “like” the things that feel relatable. It’s our basic need to belong. And where better do we belong than our own family?
Though the sad part is that so many of us, in so many instances, believe we don’t belong with our own family. That’s because we deny the very essence of what a family is meant to do. It provides a place to come home to. It provides safe boundaries. It provides comfort and nourishment. It’s the duty of every member of the family to make this happen. And this happens through intermingling of members in various stages of human life – grandparents, parents, children, siblings et al.
But how many of us have truly witnessed the full extent of human life. Can we really say that we have seen a child grow? Have we ever seen someone grow old? I am not talking about the occasional visits or superficial view of growing up or growing old. I am talking the real ordeal and turmoil of physical and mental changes. Many of us can only vouch for the changes we felt in our own lives.
And that precisely is where humanity failed. We refused to witness the lives that lived before us. We can’t handle the needs of the lives that come after us. We were afraid to listen to what human experience had to say. We chose to hide behind technology and quote “science” instead of knowing our roots and raising our fruits. 
The homemaker mother says her life was in vain, that her years passed and nothing came of it. She blinds her children to the love that she’s showered, the laughter that she nurtured, the stability she brought to her family. She overlooks the energy she has created that will live on through her children. And if the children don’t see this, they too will struggle to create life, literally and figuratively.
An office-worker dad feels he has spent most of his life at work and barely knows his children. He feels he has failed as a father. He knows little of how his grit would impress his son in discipline. He probably doesn’t see the feeling of security he brought to his wife and daughter. He cannot fathom the pride and contentment in his parents and mentors.
Another theme in the time travel drama was how the leads did not know of their affection for one another in their original timelines and how that led to their depressive lives. It makes us wonder how many people we have walked past without truly knowing how much we meant to each other. Worse still, how many hands did we let go without ex-pressing the love we harbour for them. I distinctly remember wanting to say a final goodbye to a dear friend who was moving away. For some odd reason, I hesitated and many years slipped by before I could come to terms with it. But again, I don’t regret it, instead it’s my lesson to not hold back
another time. After all, we can’t really turn back time. And here I am, nurturing new shoots of my family, one day at a time.
In a world that measures us by our shortcomings, family is where we gather for our greatest strengths. Family is where we learn of the human experience we are meant to go through. Family is where the true reward lies. That’s where the true learning awaits.
All else is nothing but a means to the end.
Chinnu George
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