Breaking the cycle

There are always two sides to an argument. Sometimes three. sometimes four. If you ask me, they are messy little things. They are often too complex to understand since people lie about their actions and close their minds to the perspectives of others. Lies cause hatred. Hatred causes arguments. Arguments result in lies. That endless cycle has rolled through the generations above me leaving me caught in the middle. Did I have to choose a side? I didn’t want to choose a side. 

Rarely do I meet extended family, because they are all in India, and we are in America. Summer visits were our connection. All the problems started in year 3. Returning to my paternal grandfather's bungalow after a festival, I recall the setting—a spacious entrance shielded by a black, diamond-patterned gate, a dusty yard with an Indian swing, its wooden seat etched in my memory. The bungalow housed an old computer and a living room with black sofas facing a TV, flanked by a Russian doll-adorned cabinet. Bedrooms adorned with beds and cupboards, our room was large enough for three, equipped with cabinets, mirrors, and an en-suite bathroom. A messy laundry room lay behind the living room, and a dining table and kitchen completed the space. 

That is the bungalow I spent my India holidays in, for most of the time. That day, we entered the living room, having run inside seeking refuge from the monsoon's downpour. As I say, I’m not sure when the argument started, or what the trigger was. My eldest aunt (mum’s side), and my maternal grandma and my mum seemed to be on one side, and my paternal grandmother and grandfather on the other. They were both shouting at each other like hell had broken loose. They were shouting some nonsense and I didn’t really understand Telugu, so I didn’t understand them. All I remember thinking was ‘why are they fighting’. Now, if the same thing happened, I would have phrased it more colourfully. But back then I was innocent, pampered by everyone. It was, if you like the first bad thing that had happened to me. My mum’s side and my dad’s side in an argument with each other. With me clueless. Looking at my family fight, I could see my grandfather seemed to be about to slap my aunt, but my dad stopped him. I could see all there was was simply hate. Usually masked by politeness and formality. I started silently crying, and I went into the bedroom we normally sleep in. Why should I see my mum’s side and dad’s side fight? It was unfair. Or that was what 7- year-old me thought anyways. 

Everything went quiet again after a while. My mum’s side had left. I asked my dad what had happened. He didn’t tell me the whole truth, and I knew it. He said something like “Your grandma doesn’t like your aunt.” I didn’t question him.  

In Year 5, my parents received news of a death, prompting a 6-month trip to India. Settling in my village, Kashipuram, contrasted my urban English life. Initially isolated, I attended a local school with just three classes. Being ahead academically, I shifted to the older class (for 11 – 15 year olds) and befriended Akshara, Dikshita, and Hemasree (Dikshita’s younger sister). 

I formed deep connections with their families, spending every day together without boredom, engaging in village escapades and farm activities. This rustic lifestyle unexpectedly fulfilled me, making leaving for America difficult despite our strong bonds and weekly calls back in America. 

This visit taught me three things about the argument: number 1 – every villager knows about it in the older generation. Number 2 – they expect at first for me to know about it, but I don’t. Also, that it started here, in Kashipuram a long time ago. Everyone in the family is involved, whether they liked it or not. They were trapped, ensnared in hatred at each other. And here I was, in the middle. 

I don’t know whether things got worse as I got older, or whether I simply payed more attention after my longer visit to India, being more culturally aware. In year 6, our mum took us to our uncle's house. We normally stayed there for a week in one holiday to India. This time, since my dad wasn’t coming as he was busy with work, we stayed there for 3 weeks. Our grandfather insisted on having me visit him every day when we stayed there. Since my uncle has a son, and I enjoyed talking to him, I frankly preferred it there. Visiting him maybe twice a week would be fine. But every day. It wasn’t far away, but that was a bit much. If he really wanted to see me, he could have come there and saw me. 

So one day, I was talking to him and I was talking about some dresses my uncle and aunty had bought me and he suddenly lashed out and told me to never talk about my uncle and aunt in front of him again. I knew well enough by then that questioning would result in an argument. So, I simply agreed, in a muted fashion. 

Another time, he saw my home screen. It was a photo of me and all my cousins from my mum’s side. I had chosen the photo, not because I favoured my cousins from my mum’s side over my cousins from dad’s side, but simply because I liked the photo. It also reminded me of the year 5 days when we took the photo, of Kashipuram, and the fun I had there. 

“Are you a Bashireddy or a Vutukuri.” he asked me, sternly. (Bashireddy is my dad’s family name, Vutukuri is my mum’s family name) 

Both, I had wanted to reply. I’m both, and you can’t change that. 

But I knew arguing wouldn’t change anything. Arguments result in lies. Lies cause hatred. Hatred causes arguments. The cycle can start from anywhere, and it applies to me as well. 

“Bashireddy.” I had replied. “But this photo is nice.” 

“I have one of you, Aryan and Abhinav (my brother and cousin from his side) like that. Change it.” 

I didn’t like that photo, it wasn’t as nice, I didn’t remember it being taken and I had no emotional connection to it. But I kept it to please him. He mentioned the hatred that lay in both the sides in subtle ways, as if seducing me to stay on his side. My mum’s side had never done that. Their gifts to me have always been meaningful, if not grand or expensive. They had never encouraged me to rally against my dad’s side. 

My grandfather and grandma, on the other hand, tried to gift me expensive jewellery, fabulous dresses, always trying to outgift my mum’s side. He has tried yet failed to instil a dislike for my mum’s side in me. I hated that. But I didn’t hate him. I wanted to do something then but didn’t know if I should. I shared my problems with my best friends, Akshara and Dikshita. 

We were outside, baking in the hot sun, on one of my visits to Kashipuram in the street that had come to be named Maharshi Vidhi (-Saints Street,translated, long story). As we walked, I said: 

“Do you know why my parent’s sides both hate each other?” I asked them. 

Akshara and Dikshita exchange glances. I saw a silent conversation between them, but I don’t know what is said. 

“We aren’t allowed to tell you. "said Akshara, with a look of pity. “The village elders made us promise. They said it had to be your parents' choice; we couldn’t interfere.” 

“We’d tell you; we know how important it is to you but you’re just going to have to accept you won’t find out or stop it. Some wounds run too deep for the healing.” added Dikshita. 

“I love them both. They can’t force me to spend my time switching between them, divided. I can’t spend my life, not able to be with both at the same time, with all this tension which amounts to nothing.” I complain. 

Akshara stops walking. We are under the shade of the banyan tree, a nostalgic spot for all of us, full of many memories of dancing, shouting and playing. 

“I know it’s hard. But so many families have arguments. Yours might be worse than most, and your situation more complex than most, but your parents will either tell you, or they won’t. Dikshita’s right, some wounds run too deep for the healing. You can’t change that. Many people, older and wiser than you have tried. It’ll only cause more arguments.” said Akshara, in response to my outburst. 

“More arguments. More lies. More hatred. Why do I have to be stuck in the middle. I’m sick of it. I want to tell them to get over it. Get over your past and work on making the future better. Blame can never be pinned on one side. I don’t care how it started. I want it to end. End it.” I replied, furiously wiping away a tear. 

Akshara pulled me into an embrace. “I know. I know. But there’s very little choice.” she answered. 

This wasn’t like Romeo and Juliet. It could seem like that, at first glance, without the double suicide. Two people from families that hate each other, married, because of their love for each other. The problem with that theory is that my parents had an arranged marriage. They didn’t love each other before they married. Why marry two people with backgrounds that clearly despise each other? I didn’t know. I didn’t need to know. I just needed to live with it. With the subtle hints, the occasional bursts of shouting that I didn’t understand, like those in year 9 when I went that year. 

At the end of year 10, so many people died. Some I barely knew, like one of my grandad’s brothers. My great grandma. Others pulled pieces out of my heart, like my maternal uncle, and Hemasree. Hemasree. She was 8. That is too young to die, before even experiencing life. It made me think. We are all living on borrowed time. Why waste time on arguments that have no purpose anymore? Why waste time hating people when you could be spreading love? Why waste time shouting when you could be making conversation? 

Dikshita and Akshara had a point. I hadn’t officially even been told that a dispute between the two sides existed. It could have been argued that it should be my parents' choice to tell me. After hours of crying- alone in my room just before we went to India- mourning over Hemasree's death, I decided if I didn’t have a choice, I would force my opinion in anyways. If they argued, I would tell them to shut up, that all of us would be better off as friends. 

Sometimes, you say things, or make promises to yourself in the moment of anger and frustration. If you try to keep that promise, it’s too difficult, or impossible. Sometimes, if you try to voice your opinion, you get tongue-tied at that moment. If you make a resolution, you forget it. But on the 8 – hour flight to India, I prayed to God that the promise I made to myself was not empty, that it would be followed through and executed. 

I didn’t spend that entire visit worrying and hoping an argument wouldn’t happen. Since it was my last holiday before my GCSEs, I was determined to enjoy the time I spent there. My aunty had moved back into Kashipuram, and I managed to convince my grandparents and mum to let me stay there for three weeks so I could spend time with Akshara and Dikshita. We spent some time grieving over Hemasree, but most of our time was spent doing what we normally did together with even more fervour, knowing that soon we would be too old for that sort of thing, that this was probably our last year all together: me, Akshara and Dikshita running around on the streets of Kashipuram. 

When I came back, everyone on my mum’s side wanted to see me, all at once. Even my second aunties and uncles came to visit. They came to the bungalow, all at once, all the adults, from both sides. I don’t think it was planned for them to come all at once. That was, quite literally a minefield. The subject of the dispute, I had come to perceive as a loaded gun at the middle of the table. Easy to reach, hard to ignore, explosive in the wrong hands. With so many hands ready to reach the gun, it would inevitably fire. 

Everyone was there to see me, so I couldn’t have excused myself to prepare for the inevitable fight. The emotional part of my mind was saying to just shout out my feelings on the subject if it happened, that nothing bad could come out of it anyway. The thinking part of my mind told me that doing it could cause trouble, that it was better to not speak. 

I wasn’t paying attention to the conversation when it started. My ears detected the change in the tone and volume in their voices, my eyes cowered from the passion in the glowering looks exchanged between both sides, and my brain processed the progression of the conversation from understandable to incomprehensible. 

Should I do it? I thought. Shout for them to stop and listen to themselves. Make friends, reconcile. Forget the past because what matters is the future. Get past it because I’m tired of being stuck in the middle. Get past it to end the cycle of lies, arguments and hatred. Make my voice heard. I opened my mouth to try get out the words. I was tongue-tied, scared by the ferocity of the dispute, the passion in the voices. Perhaps Dikshita was right. This wound runs too deep for the healing. 

I refuse to believe that some wounds run to deep for the healing. 

When there is a wound, you do your best to tend to it. You don’t give up. My family had a wound. I had to try my best to heal it. I didn't even need to push the part of my brain telling me not to speak out of the way. I was so sick and tired of the arguing, that it came out of frustration. 

“Stop! Stop! Everybody stop!” I shouted. 

Everybody stopped and stared at me. My ribcage clenched at the feeling of all the eyes staring at me, but I exhaled and let it go. 

“Stop and listen. Look at yourselves!” I cried. “You are all shouting and arguing about something that happened years ago. Abba, you once asked me whether I am Bashireddy or Vutukuri. I’m both. The blood of both families runs through my veins. You were once friends. You married my mum to my dad and then started hating each other. Or something. I don’t pretend to know what you are arguing about. But I do know that its unnecessary. There are no arguments that can’t be resolved if both parties are willing. And why aren’t you willing? Your ego? You want revenge? Revenge is something the human mind wishes for. It’s not a path to a better life. You want to defend your ego? Forget it. Apologising and forgiving doesn’t reduce your ego, it strengthens it. It shows you have the strength of character to forget past mistakes and focus on the future. Your future.” 

I paused for breath, felt a tear run down my cheek but didn’t wipe it away. 

“You are living on borrowed time. So many of you here are old, and aging. You will soon die. That happened to my uncle. My uncle and Hemasree. She was only 8. The point is life is too short for arguments. Would you rather die, knowing that all your life you missed out on so many conversations that could have been exchanged in peace. That you missed out on spending time with me and my brother because you couldn’t spend it together. Or would you rather die, knowing you upheld a good relationship with everyone, that you were able to maintain a friendship and mend and acknowledge your mistakes. You were friends. You can be friends again. There is nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Please. For me. For yourselves. Stop this hatred.” 

I did it. I did it. The consequences didn’t matter to me. I voiced my opinion, and I was heard. My Telugu was broken, and I had probably made more than a few mistakes with the grammar. But they understood it. 

One of my grandfather’s brothers speaks up. 

“She’s right. A child has seen what we don’t. We are all trapped in our own hatred. Hating isn’t something you do freely. It takes effort, and we are better off without it. I can’t imagine what it’s like to stand in the middle of such an intense argument. Vengala Bashireddy. Saraswati Vutukuri. (My paternal grandfather and maternal grandma) You began this argument. Neither of you are to blame. Apologise and forget. She has spoken wisely.” 

My grandfather knelt at my grandma’s feet. “I’m sorry. I put you through so much trouble, and remained distant when you were in need. For both our sakes, please forgive me.” 

My grandma gently held my grandad's hand and brought him to his feet. “Your apology is all I ever wanted. I went the wrong way about it, I sought revenge. I’m sorry for my mistakes. I had too much ego to say this. Our friendship will make us stronger. Let’s finish.” 

And so, the cycle ended. No more hatred. No more arguments. And I could spend time with both sides of my family, at the same time. What more could I wish for.