Life is full of compromises.
This is something I hear many saying when it comes to choosing a partner for them in life be it in an arranged or love marriage. But I was wondering If we start compromising only when it comes to choosing a partner!!! The truth is that compromise start in very early stages of our lives, in fact it starts right from the day we start to like something so badly, but then move on when we don't get it which is the case most of the times..... :)
I personally wanted to be a cricketer like any other Indian kid when I watched Sachin playing in Sharjah against Pakistan but then I had to put aside the plans for I had literally no encouragement or even support from my family for some reason and that was the first big compromise I had to make in my life. That continued for the rest of my childhood in which time I had to compromise a lot mostly for financial reasons which includes keyboard classes, hockey stick, jeans, and many more. There was one day I even had an argument about a bike which I wanted to have for travelling to school but my dad advised me in taking a cycle that we got when I was in 6th Std. Again I had to compromise this time but then I stuck to my decision of not taking the bi-cycle and I went to school walking all way for almost 2 kms daily. I was very angry with my dad for this the whole year.
One Year later....
We had to travel to Trichy for my engineering counseling just after 3 or 4 days after my dad had a surgery on his kidney to remove the stones in it. I had got 276.18 on 300 and was hoping to get a free seat in any of the private colleges in Chennai for obvious reasons. Never in my mind had I thought of picking up a seat in Anna University or any other Govt colleges. I know it is little weird but that’s the fact. But I was greeted with shock when I reached the place in the morning for we had very few seats in the private colleges, in fact the numbers of seats available were less than 10 and I was totally disappointed for my turn would come only in the evening at 5 to be exact. :(......
All through the day I was pushing my dad to get me a payment seat in ECE in Chennai which would cost five times more just for the fact that I wanted to enjoy a different lifestyle than what I had in my native place. Though he wanted me to take a seat in the Govt College, with a concerned face he just started turning the pages of a book provided with all the costs that would be involved and by the time we entered the all he had decided something in his mind. I could sense that he would get me the seat even if I didn't get a free seat in the college I wanted. As we entered the place I was surprised to find that the numbers had just dropped from less than 10 to less than 5. I had narrowed down to EEE seat in SRM after going behind ECE for almost all year for some reason without much knowledge about the college. Little did I know that It was the best place to study back then.... :)
I had a little glow at this point for there was 3 seats available with 7 people to go before me only to find 4 among them were in the same quota. The entire glow vanished in seconds and all I asked my dad at that moment was a payment not thinking about his financial situation. He just nodded the head and I just kept my fingers crossed. After a commotion in the checking queue because of a mistake in my application form I was the first in selection queue when I entered the room with full of computers displaying the available options. We had the following notable options for us
Free Seats:
- ECE, EEE in Thiyagaraja College in Madurai.
- ECE in Govt College in Coimbatore.
- EEE, ECE seats in all the Govt colleges except REC, Anna University and PSG.
- Chemical in REC.
- Civil and lower branches in Anna University.
- ECE in St.Joseph
- ECE in MEPCO Sivakasi.
- EEE is SRM - 2 seats.
- Mechanical in PSG.
Of all the options in the screen I could see only SRM through my eyes. I knew that my dad wanted me to take the ECE seat which I had been talking about in Thiyagaraja college but when I chose the last but one EEE seat in SRM over that and he was taken aback by my decision but agreed to it without much resistance. Even now it remains a puzzle to him as to why I picked EEE over ECE which I wanted to pick. Now who picked the last is yet another interesting fact …… :)
As we came out of the room we had to pay fifteen thousand rupees accepting the seat which would be just five thousand had it been Thiyagaraja College. As my dad was paying the fees, I noticed that he had carried enough cash for a payment seat along with him. Only then I realized what a huge compromise he had made at that moment just after his kidney surgery and with 2 more daughters to get married. It continued for another 4 years of his life where he spent around four lakhs for my college which could have been well below fifty thousand had I chose the Govt College in Madurai. Only then I realized all the compromises that I had done so far didn't not have any significance for the one he had done for me.
My dad might not have given me the best, but I am pretty much sure that he has always tried 200% to give me the best :)
