Thank You for Being My Worst Example: Lessons from Toxic Relatives

Indian family relations are a complex that needs to be studied. Some family members genuinely stick around for you. They drag you along, encouraging you, either silently or raucously, letting you soak up the flavours that life offers you or protecting you from every mild hindrance. At times, their love is as sweet as the sticky syrup of Rasagulla. Painfully sweet and tender. Other times it is the burst of a Biryani. The deep and hidden, guarded but explosive love. They are the better aspects of this complex.

The others sit around, jealousy reeking off them, unhappily trying to stab you through. They are not your devils. They try to chip away at us, chipping us around our edges, compelling us to become the ugly versions of ourselves. They appear in our lives, offering nasty remarks masked by false sweetness. As children, we don’t recognise them. Then our innocent forgiveness runs out. Their ruthless monstrosity seeps through their sharp words and actions, and we’re left emotionally exhausted. Nothing we do will ever be enough for them.  What do we do next? Cut them off, most of the time. 

The greatest lessons of life are hidden in these so-called “relatives”. There’s one thing they are good at: being perfect examples of a flawed person. The kind of flawed person who was unwilling to let go of their traumas, their failures, and blamed others for their downfall. They rotted in their misery, yet were so reluctant to get up and become a better person. They are the reason we turn out different. They shape our personalities, too, in a way. The things they do repulse us to the point that we don’t condone them any more. They are the experiences we’ll never get to have, yet see the outcome of. They are the manifestations of our shortcomings. They, too, deserve thanks for creating you.