Welcome to the weekly Loose Bloggers Consortium Friday posts when some of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Conrad.
I was a nogoodnik till, with great difficulty and two attempts, I got my High School certificate. My father gave up on me. My late mother did not. She kept nagging me to study and at least get a Bachelor’s degree. This was very important for her as, she felt that I had more in me than what my father saw in me.
After that, I started working and studying for a Bachelor’s degree through the then equivalent of distant learning. There were regular letters from my mother when she could not harangue in person to study and reach my potential. My father, when he came to know about my part time academic pursuits was skeptical.
Lo and behold, I got my Intermediate certificate on the first attempt and my mother was ecstatic and rushed to my father with the news. My father’s reaction was disbelief. He told my mother that her son was a liar. So, I got a letter asking me to send a copy of the certificate duly attested to be a true copy. With some difficulty, I got that done and disbelief turned to grudging belief.
My mother would not leave me in peace. Despite the fact that I was making and spending money and thoroughly enjoying myself, she kept nagging me to continue the distant education to get my Bachelor’s degree. Just to keep her off my back I enrolled in a course and when my father came to know about it, you guessed it, he was skeptical. The Gods were kind to me and I got that degree at the first attempt and my father’s reaction to that news was again disbelief. Just so that he could prove to my mother that his nogoodnik son was lying again, he sent one of his minions to check from the university whether I had graduated and when that was confirmed, he had no chice but to accept my mother’s glee and joy.
The story does not stop there. My mother came across an advertisement asking for students for a high profile Institute of Management and insisted that I sit for the competitive examination and when I passed that hurdle, the skepticism and disbelief till proof of admission was provided, repeated.
When due to some unavoidable circumstances, I was forced to relocate from where I was living then, I decided to accept the offer of admission and went for my MBA program. Skepticism was once again the reaction from the father. He told my mother that I would be thrown out of the Institute in a few months. When i survived the full two years and graduated, disbelief was once again present till I took the diploma home, along with a job offer from a high profile company who had recruited me via the campus recruitment process.
I have had first hand experience of skepticism and disbelief, Conrad. I have overcome both in my own humble way, with God’s grace and the nagging of my late mother.
There is a famous couplet in Tamil, my mother tongue, which translates to: “Greater is the joy for a mother than giving birth to a son, is when she learns that her son is learned.” I am glad that I was able to give her that joy despite skepticism and disbelief that she was exposed to.
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