Singapore - you hurt me always

 This has been a year of hectic travels for me. I do not recall having to travel so much in the past. immediately after the US trip, I travelled to Bangalore for a summit. I was still jet lagged when i made that trip and i can assure you that I have not been more disoriented in my life before. 

I am now in Singapore for an APAC summit. In a moment of mad inspiration [or not sure what had got into me] I planned this trip with my mother and sister. I have regrets a plenty. the most important one being that I had to leave Nyra with Nikhil to accommodate few extra days of travel with them. 

Singapore was such a reality check. I had been swayed by my foolishness and naivety to think that all of my childhood experiences with my mom would not be repeated. So to imagine that it happened in Singapore, during s supposedly holiday with mom and my sis post an office offsite, is a shock that I am still reeling from.

Immediately after the excitement of being in Singapore died down, i could sense a weird tension with mom. Like always i knew it had been building up from her side. And the showdown with Fittu a couple of days before our departure did not help. Once again I found myself walking on egg shells around her. Every now and then there were offhanded comments flying, which would take me aback and challenge a reaction from me. 

While I could escape on the first few days when I was at work, the reunion didn’t bode well. Once the snide remarks started piling up, I couldn’t resist a retort on it. I found myself reduced to my first memories with my mother - as an abandoned 4-5years old kid waiting for mother to give some attention. How pathetic is it that that’s my first memory of childhood and my mother. Would it have been asking for too much to show some love to a young kid?

And how is it that it still hurts so much! Mom’s behaviour triggered so many childhood memories, that it became overwhelming to be around her. Strange that a five year old’s memory is no different from a forty something’s experience today. Will this ever stop? Will i ever find myself outside the dark washroom that I would be locked into by mother for refusing to eat food that I did not like?

What parenting allows you to scar a child emotionally like that? And who will come to protect a helpless child from the atrocities of their own parents?