Being a Cousin
Sophia Khumukcham *
Childhood :: An artwork from Laishram Meena
"…..Never give children a chance of imagining that anything exists in isolation. Make it plain from the very beginning that all living is relationship. Show them relationships in the woods, in the fields, in the ponds and streams, in the village and in the country around it. Rub it in." I ponder upon these words by one of my favourite authors, Aldous Huxley.
I tried looking back through my life and I was down memory lane, my childhood with these words lingering back of my mind. If I was ever granted one wish in my life I would definitely wish to relive my childhood. Carefree, happy and gay with dreams in our eyes, hope in our heart living life as life is supposed to be lived. My childhood was special, I believe, because I grew up in a big family surrounded by cousins. As Huxley expressed, my life was never an in isolation. I never ran out of my "partners-in-crime".
With older cousins around, you can never be wrong; what more can you ask for if you are in the same school!! You are the "queen" of the school with some many in number from the same family. Your clan kind of rule the school, literally!
You always have someone to help with your trigonometry but you don't want to hear their voices reading their lessons out at 4 am in the morning with Ima reminding me how useless I was and that I should learn from my good cousins! I will never forget my frowning mornings and curses I had for them all!
I got to read the bestsellers and comics than anyone else in my class because my cousins used to get them for me from Delhi and I never failed to flaunt my "Delhi cousins" and what goodies I got from them. I picked up my reading habits from these precious gifts of mine.
Twists and turns in life could not drain the optimism out of me. I stood strong with great cousinly support, channelizing my energy back to life. With all these lessons learnt from them all, I could spread out my wings of friendships and laid good foundations for a life long relationships passing on the value of being a family to the generation following me.
So cutting the story short, I am using this forum to let all my cousins spread across the world that I exist in relationship with the world through you all. Thank you for being the best buddies, best cousins!!
* Sophia Khumukcham wrote this article for e-pao.net
The writer can be contacted at sophia(doT)khumukcham(at)gmail(doT)com
This article was posted on April 24, 2014.
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