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Dogs, Culturally Speaking
“Why can’t I have one?” I asked. It was so useless. I knew what was going to happen. Curiosity killed the cat; I just thought I’d like to prove it. My mother and father looked intently at me, a look of disappointment. I had broken laws, and so began another downward spiral. “There is no time for a dog, you have to study, who is to take care of it,” my mother explained.
Like a train, it all hit me, and before I knew it, my entire life was to be revealed before me: That I was a hopeless infidel and would end up on the streets, boosting cars, selling drugs, and working in a shoelace factory until my fingers were worn, and in that case, could not do the drugs that I would eventually take up; all due to the damn dog. Talk about family expectations. Ahh, life was good. The Indian parents’ way out of everything was to relate their children’s failures to another, “uncle,” whom we didn’t particularly know, and claim that he eventually became a nutcase or sent away to an asylum where he still resides. We never really asked if we could meet this man, we knew he really didn’t exist. “We could just send him off to boarding school,” yes, of course, the old boarding school in India was always an option. If you got an A+ in all classes (God forbid), your parents could demand that A++’s should litter the report card.
This is the time not to say a word; otherwise the boarding school was their best option. At this beautiful boarding school retreat for kids who average a 99, you could be beaten, schooled until your brain felt like mush splashing against the side of your head, and eat the food that not even the beggars ate. I wonder what these people did when they drove up to a drive through restaurant for the first time. What did they think? “Why can’t I at least take care of it?” This was the first time it happened. Rebellion! “Do you know that in India, we had to walk barefoot, five miles, uphill, in the melting tar, just to get to school!” Good, the guilt trip card was being played. My dad is excellent at it. “Back in India, we would share books with other students, sometimes we had half books which were ripped, and had to struggle daily to find the pages off of other kids, and sometimes we never had the pages, so had to figure everything out ourselves. Our life was so hard, and you stupid kids have everything in America, yet you bring home such results, and demands!” My father shouted. “We would come home every day in the afternoon, and study, hours later, our mother would scream at us to eat food, and yet none of us would leave, we studied and studied. When the electricity died, we would use candles and study so hard that we could not even see things anymore! There was no time for the outside, no time for anything, and you have everything here, and you are asking for a dog? There is simply no time for dog!” I lost. Well it wasn’t even the beginning; this was the intro to the introduction. There were many sorts of wars that erupted; all were civil, until they dragged the relatives into it. I shudder even now at the thought that they could possibly call relatives who did not really know me, to come lecture my “bad behavior,” and tell me about their forefathers in India. There were the “progress report wars,” the “you want to stay home in the summer and not go to a science program!” wars, and the ever so pleasant “a 99.5 on your test, you are stupid and going to end up on the streets, with no money, and no family!” “How about a new car, maybe some fancy shoes while we’re at it.” My sense of humor did not “humor,” my parents, who were too serious, all the time. I am now 16; just wait until they start looking for “suitable,” arranged marriages. Although these people I call my parents, are well intentioned, and love me, I still think dogs cannot be so bad. I even made a compromise; I will not end up on the streets, if I get the dog. Article provided by 
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