Find your own tribe

The families we choose are often proof that blood is not thicker...

 

How do you define a family? Is it just people linked by DNA and marriage? Is it restricted to mom/dad, kids, and maybe two sets of grandparents? Does it encompass the extended clan, no matter how far removed? Can it ever include those who are not related to you by blood but by laughter and tears instead?

 

The older I grow the more I realise that there is no one way to make a family of your own. Yes, the first ties that bind are those that connect us to our parents, grandparents and siblings. As we reach adulthood and make our own families, it is that pattern that we seek to replicate, creating little nuclear structures of our own, peopled by our own flesh and blood. And while that is a perfectly viable way to create a family, it is by no means the only one.

 

My childhood was marked by the fact that I never quite understood where my family ended and the rest of the world began. Those were the days when neighbours would drop in unannounced at each other’s houses; when you ended up eating lunch or dinner in whichever home you found yourself in at the time; and if you fell down and hurt yourself it didn’t matter whose mom picked you up and dusted you off. This was communal living at a time when I did not even understand what the word meant. But it showed me that family bonds can be forged with people who have no familial relationship with you. 

 

Those early experiences have inevitably coloured the rest of my life. When I moved to Delhi three decades ago, I was warned that this was a city which didn’t do family feeling. And I believed that for a bit and kept myself to myself. But then, fed up of being constricted in this manner, I dropped in at my landlord’s place to give his mom some halwa and puri on Kanjak day. That was all it took for the dam to burst open. After that, he simply could not do enough for me. If he was going to pay his electricity bill, he would offer to pay mine at the same time. If the fuse went out he would send someone to fix it. And before I knew it, I had a family of sorts I could rely on. 

 

The same was true of work colleagues. We started off as acquaintances, then graduated to friendship as we bonded over looming deadlines and missing copy. And then, one day down the line, we realized that we had become family to one another in a process so imperceptible that we didn’t even clock when the change happened.

 

So, my advice to all of you this Sunday morning is this: don’t be afraid to go out and seek out a family of your own. Introduce your toddler to the granny who lives in the ground floor flat two doors down. You will be surprised by how soon the two of them become fast friends; and how quickly you are subsumed into that relationship.

 

And if your child can help you expand your family circle at his or her tender age, then what excuse do you have for staying within your own silo?

 

Yes, that’s right. None!