When I was fifteen, I thought I had the world in my palm. I wanted to disappear and come back as a different person. Like most young people at that age, I struggled with who I was, who I wanted to be, and my place in the world. I looked around, everything around me seems interesting, but it seems impossible to figure them out. That transitionary phase of youth is the most challenging to navigate. The road to adventure loomed large in my head. It is possible this was a result of being a teenager in the seventies. Perhaps every teenager feels like that in every generation, even today.
I had a couple of scars in my life by then. The first was living with my mentally ill grandmother in our family home. That was a hard call for a boy too young and without the mental capacity to cope. The second was dealing with abuse at a Christian boarding school where I was boarded. It was as if I was in a plane crash at fourteen.
I was formed by these things when I was a teenager. I learned to be a fighter from these two events. They made me.
Looking back, it was a good thing and a bad thing. It was the unity of the opposites. The advantage of going through that trauma at such a vulnerable age made me strong and resolute. The world was complicated a little earlier at the young age of fifteen. I was heartbroken a little earlier from the boarding school incident. It introduced wisdom to my life. It made me strong. I figured that nobody has a perfect life. The real me emerged from that trauma.
I was no longer the victim. I did not thrive on victimhood. A lot of that credit needs to go to my father, who had no idea what his son has been through in a wretched institute. His unconditional love and allowing me to enjoy my boyhood beyond that point helped heaps in my recovery. Also, I had a great buddy, my best mate, Ajit. He lovingly looked after me, showering his unique kindness and acceptance.
I had another episode that made me stronger. It was a near-death experience on the road. I nearly had a head-on crash with a jeep while riding my boy’s bicycle in my neighbourhood. I escaped by a whisker. It gave me the fright of my life. That incident gave me further impetus to live like I had a second chance.
I became stronger. I liked being true to myself. I changed rapidly. I slowly became an expert in fitting in. I developed an ability to be friends with many friends in school and my home village. That was an early lesson in diversity. My friends in school and college were from a city-suburban background. My friends from my home village were generally village kids. My city friends spoke English. We watched English movies, read English novels and magazines and listened to Western pop music. My friends from my home village and neighbourhood were village kids with a village mindset. They did not speak English and were not exposed to Western culture. It was a great experience in diversity early on. I became authentic in my approach to fitting in.
One thing leads to the other.
I was hungry for friendships. In that process, I was open to things I did not know. I learned new things. I accepted them from wherever they came.
Through these great learnings, I became borderless. I did not regard where a person was from, what village, what school, what ethnicity, what religion, what background. I learned them in my budding years in Sri Lanka as a teenager.
I opened to the wider universe. The world became my oyster. I became a global citizen. A nomad that is open to new connections and discoveries.
Even today, I try to hold onto that quality. My friends are genuine. They sincerely love people, which extends to a lovely camaraderie between friends.
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