Growing up in the 1970s in Bengaluru’s Srirampura, near Malleshwaram, my world consisted of jasmine flowers, samphire trees, compound walls, short-stepping crickets and long walks to the railway station.
We were 15 children at first, then 20 when new families moved in. We knew no prejudices, comparisons or insecurities. We were oblivious to the weight of the world. We only knew company. I have always believed that those children shaped my character more than anything at home.
We learn about death early – two fathers run away, a mother lost in tragic circumstances. We didn’t have the vocabulary for grief, but we picked up our friends instinctively, making sure they never felt alone. We celebrated the first wedding in the group with the same innocence. Life was simple and with it, we were also simple.
However, old growth has a way of clouding the lens. Expectations come and responsibility is set. And lately, I’ve come to understand something I never saw then: those years didn’t mean the same to everyone as they did to me.
Insecurity, jealousy or envy – I never saw anything as a child. I never saw it even when I met them as adults. But now I see that some of them were already carrying burdens that I did not know. For some, adulthood became a scoreboard—riches, accomplishments, comparisons, and performances. These were never part of my objective – not then, not now. But for some of them, these became markers of who they had become.
One of my friends visited India recently. I was waiting for memories, warmth and shared memory. But this was not to be. I left with a sadness I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was the realization that the childhood I had so much didn’t have the same meaning for others.
I remembered everyone’s birthday for years. I wished each of them on their birthday, year after year, because those friendships meant something to me. A few years ago, I stopped – not out of anger, but because I finally saw that no one remembered mine. In that little silence, I realized something bigger: I had held those connections far more sincerely than they did.
I see the same pattern today. Confirmation of something I’ve slowly learned – that the connections you hold sincerely are not always held the same way by others.
I am not bitter or angry. I’m just aware. My childhood shaped me. He shaped some of them too – but not in the same way, not with the same depth, not with the same meaning.
And maybe that’s the truth of growing up: we all live the same years, but we don’t keep them the same way.
