Dubai Diaries: Self versus the world

When you are young and have a streak of rebellion, it’s easy to mute these voices in the head. But as you age, you cannot un-hear some of these voices. Like I cannot un-hear the voice that recently suggested that my mother was driven to dementia by me and my brother because we didn’t listen to her enough.

This was the voice of my mother’s best friend who has had access to our private lives. She has known the challenges. She has also been aware of the privileges. And yet, when a vulnerable family member reached out to her to seek solace and make sense of my mother’s condition, the answer — she thought — was in our non-conformity.

To set the context, my brother is a scholar and a maths professor who chose academic glory over marriage. In my case, I ticked one box — marriage — but when it came to another — having children — I have wavered. According to my mother’s best friend, my mother had been disappointed to a point where she was ‘depressed’ and began forgetting things.

My brother and I remember things differently. We were raised to add feathers to our caps. When we were in school, mum wanted us to study and assured everything else would be taken care of. Later, when we began working, we were assured again that everything else will be managed if only we focused on work.