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As kids, our parents and extended family lie to us a lot. Whether it is about Santa Claus existing (he doesn’t), or the notion that your first friend in school is your friend for life (they aren’t), these lies can be big or small or kinda both. And, this goes on even when you’re into puberty and adolescence.
What’s the biggest lie in my opinion? Well, it’s when parents suggest that we kids can have all the freedom and independence and fun we can ask for after we finish our schooling and graduation and start living alone. Does that happen? No, not really.
Consider this. You graduate. You celebrate it by getting drunk or getting high or taking a few ill-advised celebration selfies in your college or *shudder* the Delhi Metro. Well, what next? Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a job. Good for you. But, what after that really?
Do you get the freedom of a bird? Do you finally tuck out your shirt and go out into the world to enjoy yourself and have fun? Well, no. You never do.
You see, when you’re living alone, the older you grow, your responsibilities grow proportionally to your degree of freedom and independence. In most cases at least.
Consider my very able example. I have spent most of my life living alone in hostels and apartments but, I ‘officially’ moved out of my parent’s house the day I finished schooling. I got my own apartment near where I was studying, and this has been the case since. What has been different?
Well, no curfew times for starters. No longer do I have to keep my parents awake and hear a scolding from them for returning at 12 or 1 in the night.
No longer do I have to tip-toe in the middle of the night to eat from the fridge. I can sleep longer on weekends etc., and all that is great.
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But, what else do you get to ‘enjoy’ when you’re living alone? Bills, bills and more bills. I pay my rent on the 1st, my Wifi on the 14th, the society maintenance on the 25th and my very lazy maid who cooks only marginally better than me, on the last day of the month.
If there’s something wrong with the piping in your apartment or if your furniture has termites, you don’t have a number you can browse from your parents’ phonebook.
Instead, you have to ask a few people who may know people who are exactly right for the kind of work required.
And that’s just the part that is probably common to most of us. If you’re really unlucky, your apartment will be surrounded by a host of elderly people who will feign deafness if you ask them for the milkman’s number but, whose ears will ring alarm bells if I play a movie on my laptop louder than necessary.
Finally, if you’re planning on getting your own place and hope to bring your special someone over, sorry. You can’t. Most society people and landlords continue to look at a boy and a girl together with suspicion, including my own.
“Ladkiyaan laana allowed nahin hai,” was the first thing my landlady told me. I told her Okay because, why not? But, that’s probably not the answer a lot of other people will have in their heads.
To conclude, living away from your parents and living alone isn’t anything like it’s usually made out to be. It’s more than going out, staying out and coming back home for your toothbrush.
There’s a lot more work that goes into living by yourself. Don’t get suckered by the notion our parents have brought us up with. They have lied to us. They are liars.
Image Credits: Google Images
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