Several years ago, while I was on a vacation in India, an incident happened that is now permanently etched in my brain. I can still visualize the scene, the noise, the smell, the heat and the crowds amidst which this incident happened.

In Chennai, whenever I travel alone to visit a friend or go to a temple, I ride the city bus. Though I used to drive in Chennai, numerous one-ways and the bustling traffic scares me nowadays. So I prefer my trusted companion of olden days, the city bus. As usual, it was crowded and I was standing inside. Suddenly someone in the front recognized me and shouted, “Hi! MD, how are you da?” There, a few feet in the front of the bus, was my friend who had studied with me from 6th to 10th at the public school in Mylapore. He was one of the “cool dudes” of that time; Kabadi champ, track and field champ and the leader our school scouts team. I used to envy him when he got to ride the famous Kapaleeswarar Koil Float (Theppam) on all the festival days since he was the lead scout in charge of crowd management.

I was excited to see him and I told him I was doing fine. He then asked me what I was doing and without much thought, I told him about my education, my job and my current vacation in India. Then it was my turn and I asked him what he was up to and how his life had been since school. He replied, “I am working as a peon ma, in a bank. I did not pursue much of studies. I wish I had studied like you and our other friends”. I was stupefied for a moment. My mind had unconsciously assumed that all my friends would have somehow studied and held good paying jobs. Though there is nothing demeaning being a peon, knowing his leadership and athletic skills, I expected him to be educated and working in better paying job. When I heard this from him, I did not know how to react, but somehow changed the topic into inquiring about his other best friends who he usually hung out with.

I kept thinking about this incident many times after that day. I realized the most diverse group of our friends would be our friends from our school years. Also, it is bound to be even more diverse if we studied in a public school as opposed to private schools such as DB or PSBB. At this stage in our lives, our current circle of friends converges into a homogenous group who has decent education and a good job. On the contrary, friends from our old public school would be in very different situations that we could not even imagine.

My daughter is now graduating from a public school and will soon be entering college. With my school life, college life and the years that have passed since then acting as hindsight, I can glimpse into the future of some of her friends and where their life would take them. Not everyone is choosing to enter into a four year college. Some are going to join the military at entry level. Some are going to pursue becoming a beautician or a massage therapist. Some even talk about directly starting to work as medical emergency assistant or a fire fighter. Though here in the USA such jobs are not as bad as being a peon in India, I am sure, twenty years from now, if my daughter happens to bump into some of her old friends from her school, she may have to face a similar moment. The choices we make everyday ultimately determine where we end up. I hope everyone has the capability and will to choose wisely and aim to improve their lives each day.

We’re pleased to introduce another writer, MD Ramesh to this Blog. He’s a former colleague & a good friend of mine for the past 15 years. In his spare time, MD moon-lights as the editor of a local Newsletter in Iowa. Please encourage him with your comments. – Sukumar.

This summer, I was teaching my six-year old son to ride a bike. We usually go to the trail by the freeway near where we live. Last year, he rode with two training wheels and this year, before the school started, he asked me to take out one of them. Hmm! I thought he is becoming brave. Whenever we go biking, I used to walk or jog behind him depending on his speed. I never had any difficulty since he never went fast and he constantly kept falling down and I had to be there to hold him. Then after the school started, may be due to peer pressure at school (!), he asked me to take off both the wheels. I obliged and took him the first day without any training wheels. He could not even move one inch without me holding the bike! I thought, “Ok, he is still young. It is going to take him a while and I had to be with him and be prepared to hold the bike and run with him”.

Teaching him reminded me of the days when I learnt to ride back home. For me, mostly my brothers and my uncle taught me to ride during the hot summer holidays in India. I learnt mostly on the streets. The streets were a lot safer then. Like these instances, lots of fond memories floated by and I failed to notice my son’s improvements. He started gaining balance and all of a sudden, he said, “Papa, please take your hands off! I will do it myself”. I took my hands off, but I still continued to jog behind him. I was afraid, and also concerned that he would lose his balance, fall off the bike and hurt himself. After a couple of sessions, he gained confidence, started pedaling faster and took off. I was no longer able to catch up (age shows when you jog!) with him and I fell behind. There he is, my son, pedaling away, on his own, without training wheels, and me, I am puffing and panting and walking faster to make sure I can see him, to make sure that he does not fall and hurt himself.

Also this summer, some of my friends are in the same shoes as myself. Their sons and daughters have grown up, completed school and are going away from home to pursue their careers, ambitions and dreams. They have taken off their “training wheels” and are pedaling away towards their future, leaving us behind. We, as parents, are concerned that they should not “loose their balance” and get hurt along the way. We want to make sure we can see them, even though they are riding just fine. We also can’t believe that our children don’t need us to baby-sit them anymore. They are excited about their newfound freedom, about the new things they are going to learn and about the new experiences they are going to have. Us, we have the same old routine of mowing, cleaning and of course our jobs.

I tried to remember the time I left home for my higher studies. It was an exciting moment for me since I was going far away and will be studying in one of the best institutions. I was looking forward to the two-day train journey and the hostel life with my own independent hostel room. I will be working on the latest computers and will have access to the latest research in my subject. Among all this excitement, I failed to realize how my parents would have felt when I took off my “training wheels” and pedaled away towards my future.

No Training Wheels was published in a local Indian Association News Letter on September 2003 by M.D. Ramesh