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Leaving India
Before you read this short story take note that it is based off an interview that I had with a girl from India here in Puerto Rico. Feel free to tell me what you think about my short story and make any suggestions. Thanks
In India lives a woman who attends her Woman Society meetings every Sunday after church. She is a strong independent woman who is a professor of history at a well-known university in Manipur State, India. The women in the society gather like hens to talk about the events in their liberating lives. Unlike most states in India, women and men were treated as equals and education was encouraged for everyone in the northeast where these women gathered. Their conversations ranged from talking about minuscule events that transpire daily to the progression of their children. One conversation in particular was met with many smiles as each woman bragged about how well her daughter was doing in medical school, engineering, Indian Administrative Service Test, and other well noted professions. After all the women shared their daughter’s accomplishments they looked to the professor. She confidently told them that her daughter worked on a ship. There was silence as the women tried to think of how a twenty-one year old girl could leave her home and go work on a ship, but they would not say out loud the inner thoughts that polluted their minds. My mother smiled at them despite the silence and looks of disapproval.
It is true, I did not attend any well-noted University to study medicine, law or any other elite profession. I spent my days waitressing demanding tourists on the cruise ship. It was not the path that everyone else was taking, the path that led to success and riches. Nor was it the path that could have made the Woman’s Society proud. The path I chose was one that was uncertain. I leered into the entrance of a road that I knew nothing about; I could not see further then a few feet. Curiosity and a desire to experience the wonders and beauties of a world outside of India drove me into the unknown. I may have stumbled at first as I made the magnificent ship my home but I soon found what that I had transformed into a more mature person. I realized that when I had embarked the ship I was short tempered, immature, and financially illiterate upon debarkation I was patient, mature and knew the value of monetary gain.
I was now prepared as a woman to meet a man that would continue on this strange but wonderful journey. He had been traveling down the path similar to mine, coming from Croatia after a three year war which left his country in economic downsizing. He had been a medical aid for the wounded soldiers and felt that the road less taken was more desirable then staying in a place that was going through the normal struggles a country goes to when becoming independent. He was also a waiter on the ship, humbly serving one tourist after another. Our conversation mainly consisted of casual greetings and then a whirlwind, we fell in love.
After a while we realized that working on the ship was becoming too familiar, there must be some other road that we could take. Realizing that the strange and exciting path that we had both embarked had lost its charm and mystery we decided to go on a new journey one that would lead us to Puerto Rico. Our path to Puerto Rico was darker and stranger then the former path we had taken. It was like jumping into an unknown jungle without a map. We had no idea what we were doing and neither of us spoke Spanish. This was going to be interesting.
Was it all worth it in the end? Did my journey to Puerto Rico pay off? If you would have asked me the first day I arrived in Puerto Rico I would have told you how crazy it was to continue as my boyfriend and I gathered our luggage. We had no contacts in Puerto Rico, no place to go, no car and no idea what we were doing. Perhaps it would have been easier to turn around and go back to the ship, a place I was more comfortable with. I had exchanged a familiar setting to something that filled me with uncertainty. How simple it could have been to quit. If you ask me now, one year later, I will tell you about a struggle that led me to nearly completing a bachelor degree of a career that will bring me professional and individual fulfillment. I had not imagined that such a difficult and rocky road could lead to such beautiful waterfalls of opportunity and as Robert Frost would say ‘I chose the road less taken and it has made all the difference.’
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"After three days without reading, talk becomes flavorless. "
Chinese Proverb
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