Living together as a family brings more happiness. It’s probably one of the only accurate and valuable lessons Bollywood (and one of the many genius lessons The Godfather) has taught me. My conjoined family is what is rooted behind everything I do and care for, and my most cherished memories are with them. However I can’t say I’ve always appreciated my large, boisterous family as much as I do know, for at one point, it was quite the contrary. It wasn’t until the summer of 2007 when my attitude towards family took a 180 degree turn, for after five years of anxiously waiting and preparing, my uncle and his family were immigrating to the United States and more importantly, living with us.
It was on a lethargic August morning. The scorching sun just peered over the horizon, and my brothers and I, who were disrupted from our daily 12 hour slumber, trudged cross the living room and glued our eyes to the front window, trying to get a good look at the cousins that we only have to deal with once every few years. However, trying to be an optimist about this situation, I looked forward to finally seeing Deep without his geeky braces. Apparently, I didn’t even have that to look forward to. Deep still had his wire mouth to deal with.
Deep and Rhusin rushed out of the beaten up Mazda that was supposedly our van, barged in the yellow, haunted-looking house, and plopped their crates of luggage and gifts on the wooden floor, and before I knew it, they shoved me off, and crashed on it to finally catch up on their 12 hour beauty sleep…and from that moment on, while the throbbing in my head was at ease I managed to get on my feet, I knew that these next few months weren’t going to be pretty. Why, I couldn’t stand looking at them for all of two weeks, let alone several months! I glared over to my mom, who was standing in the corner, and from the dumbfounded look on her face, it was evident that she was thinking the same thing. She was in shock at the sight she just saw in front of her, for even though she’s been with Savanis for 14 years, she still wasn’t used to our lazy ways of life. She seemed to foresee her peaceful way of life blow up right in front of her eyes.
…and after 15 minutes of hearing my aunt talk, It did blow up.
My house became one of those afternoon soap operas on TV- with my aunt longing for home, my mom complaining to her best friend on the phone about in-laws these days, and my dad, trying to avoid it all, for just looking at the expenses in his checkbook were mind-boggling enough.
One top of the fact that the people around me seemed to have changed forever, I lost something that I prized very dearly and was ready to defend at all costs the very moment they moved in, and that was my privacy. I needed my time alone- end of story. However, that was also too much to ask for, for my cousins became my permanent stalkers. The professional time-killers they were, they felt the need to pester me at all times, whether it was their sarcasm (which I took literally), or the fact that they felt the need to snoop through the stuff in my room.
By week two of this madness, I finally understood what my grandmother had to put up with, for I couldn’t take it myself.
Despite the chaos, I somehow got through six months of that torture. Eventually, my relatives found an apartment on Hillside Avenue, right next to a Taco Bell (which proved to be very beneficial in the years to come). They moved out as soon as they could, and though at first, I did my little victory dance in my head, the feeling of “bittersweetness” gradually crept up on me. Suddenly, I got the feeling that I vowed I never would- I was actually missing the rowdy and obnoxious family that are my relatives. MAYBE my cousins weren’t as obnoxious as I thought they were. Maybe why they wouldn’t respect my beloved privacy is because they had nothing better to do at home, and their constant nostalgia was expected, for I would have probably handled the situation much worse if I were them Maybe, for once, the obnoxious one was me.
Years have passed by and when I look back at those six months, I can’t help but be thankful for them. I’m connected with a part of my family that I never would have been otherwise and even though they haven’t changed, I’ve learned to become one of them. Now, I can’t help but feel like a true Savani by uniting with them, and I don’t know what I would be without their companionship.
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