Tantrums from my desk drawer

I saw Udaan a few days back and figured there might just be more to it than just the psychotic dad and the beaten up poet who was forced to do engineering. These things are so age sensitive - two letters at different times and different places, and yet written by the same person...

[DISCLAIMER : All characters and personalities portrayed in this work of literature are fictional and any resemblance to any character, living or dead, is unintentional]

Tantrum letter #1

August 11th, 2000

Dear Mom and Dad

I don't know if I can tell you this in the hall, while you are on the couch watching TV and I'm standing near the door, so I'm just going to write down some stuff and hide it in the drawer here. Maybe some day when you move house once I go off to college, you'll find it and read it. I don't think it will matter because it will be part of the past by then.

Thank you so much for the Parker pen you gave me last Saturday on my birthday. I mean, my classmates aren't jealous of me or anything, but hell, it's ok - they hate me anyway for coming second in class.(If you haven't noticed, I am being sarcastic here.) I know you did not bring me up to complain against someone for giving me boring gifts, so please don't feel that way. I mention it because it'll help you see what I am talking about.

Why does everything I do have to be related to my books or to my marks? Worse, why do even the "side" activities, like you call them, such as music need to be judged like they are some sort of exams? Why can't you understand that I'm older now (come on, I'm 14 now, I'm no longer 8!) and there are so many other things that matter to me? My friends in class - I'm not even sure they are friends - think I am some sort of loser to be stuck up with my marks all the time. They call me a psychotic bookworm when I peer at how much marks they got in physics and chemistry, because I know you'll ask me ...I got only 61/70 (I came second in that test, FYI).

I won't tell you that I am "old" or "mature", because you can add an "-er" to the word I write and silence me then and there. Some of my friends keep saying they want to be a pilot or a scientist or a doctor. Paul for instance says he doesn't like maths and his parents don't care if he does well or not in that subject - because he wants to be a botanist anyway. I don't even know what I want to do - because you simply want to see good numbers everywhere! And I can't do any of the cool things my friends do...like partying, or even bowling, if you're so paranoid about my relationship with alcohol.

Please don't get me wrong. I love you for being my parents and for all the shouting I get, I still owe my identity to you. What I don't get is WHY I need to have this identity. Maybe when we're older I'll understand, or you can explain...

Your truly obedient son

*******

Tantrum letter #2

August 11th, 2010

Dear Mom and Dad

I don't know if you ever found that letter I wrote to you when I was in class X, but I can imagine how you would have felt when you read it. I just want to say I apologize for all the nonsense I wrote in there, I'm guessing you overlooked it as a teenager's tantrum. I owe you everything I have today in life. I graduated from some of the best schools in the country, met some amazing people and learnt some amazing things, and none of this would have been possible if you hadn't whipped and driven me like some traders on my desk in office bid up their bonds in the market.

True, I owe you everything, but today I want to complain against something else. You protected me from the world's evil till I was sixteen. You didn't let me go partying, touch alcohol (I know you don't believe me but I still don't drink), and more importantly you held my nose closer than a millimeter to my books. Which is why I am what I am today - grateful. But where did all that go away?

Yes, you continued to ask me what my grades were throughout college. Didn't really matter, because the inertia of your push for the first sixteen years of my life is enough for my next birth as well. But where were you when I had my first identity crisis - when I was so confused whether to be the bookworm or the "cool guy" in college? Why didn't you teach me how to deal with the priorities in my life? I felt so naive when I saw people being so sure about what jobs they wanted, what kind of women they wanted to marry and I found myself this naive, stupid bookworm who could only play with numbers and formulae at best.

I think you drove me like a racehorse for the first sixteen years of my life and then let me loose like a pony in the woods. At least you could have shown the pony what grass was tasty, how to tell the difference between a mare and a jenny, etc. I'm not saying you should've made the horse drink water, but maybe you should have at least led me to water. Instead all I knew was to dash when the gates opened and run like the tigers were behind me.

I'm quite certain that in ten years' time, I'll be trashing this letter, apologizing for this, and writing another long tantrum. So just in case I don't mention it enough, you're my favorite people in the whole world and I love you both very very much. And instead of hiding this one in my drawer, I think I'll just post it on facebook.

Lovingly yours

*******