Autobiography

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‘Tis rather a shock growing up with role models
that seem wonderful - only to discover as one
grows older that the person so adored is more
flawed than you could ever have guessed

Imitating others we obtain the same advantages
and suffer the same censure as well, I could not
understand why imitating mother brought me
enormous problems as I grew older, but then

I noticed the consequence for family members living
with her was disaster and alienation, hostilities and
full-scale war, I looked again at my role model to
discover the cause of all the chaos

I finally found the answer to the riddle in her fantasy
world, total withdrawal from reality made it impossible
to make contact with other people, what is worse,
she lost contact with herself, therefore

She is faced with a series of roles she plays, each one
interpreting facts differently, she tells a different story to
each person in her life, when her interlocutors compare
their different versions, all become belligerent

She tells my sister she is ill and dying while she tells me
she is happy and thriving, she tells her church pastor she
feels fine while she seems to be mortally injured when
meeting my sister and father - then they get angry with

The callous pastor who left mother to perish without help,
not realizing that the act of death mother presents for the
family’s benefit is an unconscious desire mother has to
have them help and sympathise, mother does not know

The family loves her enough to help even if she is not dying
at all, mother cannot understand why everybody around her
is fighting wherever she goes, she always tells different things
to different people, then they fight about their perceptions

Of mother and her state of health – I looked at the picture I
saw, the solution to the riddle of mother’s conflict-ridden life
and smiled resignedly, this is the role-model I have imitated
all my life, no wonder I have no mental peace, and I

Have been studying human nature and have the help of a mentor
to overcome my psychological problems - I can just imagine how
terribly unsettled mother’s inner life must be, although she bears
no malice in her, because of her mental instability

She could not get on with grandma Alice, could not see that my
father looked ridiculous dressed up like a lord, my father can be
mistaken for Alfred P. Dolittle, but never for Henry Higgins,
yet mother refused to see the difference

She coerced my father to accompany her to elite social functions
never realizing how ridiculous he made her appear because he
was a common dust-man with a gift for eloquence while she
was like Mrs Eynsford Hill, the mother of Clara and Freddy

A snob who kept up appearances while she was so poor, she
never sent Freddy to school so that he was a sham of a noble
lord; mother liked to mix with respectable people and refused
to see that forcing my father to stand at her side

Defeated her purpose, made her seem pompous, the worst is
it made us the laughing stock in our little world - as Elizabeth
Bennet sighed, nothing could ever make up for the shame and
humiliation she and Jane suffered by her mother’s pretensions

The family suffered under mother’s attempts to present my father
as a polished lord while he was a diamond in the rough, she played
at being The Queen of Hearts while my father was Attila the Hun
and she tried to make people believe that this Barbarian

Was an honourable citizen, refusing to accept the world as it is,
today I have to work very hard to separate truth from fiction, so
as to escape the same pitfalls, being imaginative is very
enjoyable, but terribly dangerous too

I trust that hubby helps me to separate truth from fiction and look
up to my older brother for guidance in seeing reality as it is, only
then shall I be able to live up to the ideals Shantaram illustrated
so beautifully as he got rid of his pretence of being

Innocent of the heartache and crime that messed up his life before
he embraced reality and forgave himself and then all the others…


References:

Characters in “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw
Characters in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
Character in “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll
Author ‘s nickname “Shantaram – Man of Peace” by
Gregory David Roberts
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