A Father’s prayer for his son studying in USA

We left India when our son was barely four year old to South East Asia and we lived our magical lives in two of the wonderous countries in South East Asia. We are a small family of three and it was gnawing at me wondering what is the place our son our call home one day when he is all grown up, have a family but we may be gone. I felt it was important for him to find a place he could call home knowing that in my most economically vulnerable moments, I always think of going back to that place in rural India where I grew up and call home. Hence, we came back to India when he was 12 year old.

Thanks to generosity of the company, he has gone to the best international schools in SEA. While international education I value for the wide exposure it provides, it doesn't make one strong enough to be able to survive or thrive in Indian Education system. I also know how difficult it is to make it in life in India if one doesn't have the IIT and/or IIM education which is enormously competitive. It is also that, I reckoned, rightly or wrongly, that for one who has grown up in SEA, it would be difficult to adjust to Indian education system. Hence, we decided that he will continue in International school in India.

It also meant that he would do in under graduate studies abroad. He is going to USA to do his undergraduate studies.

He is our only son. I have been dreading since last several years that a day would come when he will stay away from us and how would we live. The day now is less than three months away.

The pandemic is compounded our travail and made it even more challenging. Given the uncertainty that has gone up many folds and the challenging situation in India, we obsess that he will be miles away from us and we may not be able to reach him in case he needs us. We pray to God that such situation never arise.

He has done online chasses, always late at night for the last one year. He has missed out considerable opportunities that a campus life affords — all the group study sessions, the games, the late night chats with group of students from different corners of the world, the growing up taking care of laundry and exploring the magical city of Los Angeles. Hopefully, he will be able to go to campus in the fall. We will become the empty nester. We don't know how we will live. Our life has always revolved around him.

I had a broken childhood full of abuse, hurt, tear drops. Im not even normal in the sense that I dont have many emotions that anyone with normal upbringing will have. My wife has paid dearly for it. However, I have promised myself that I will at least try to be a good father as I don't feel I have been good in any other relationships.

It meant that he doent have the roughs that i have, it also mean he has not learnt to hustle that way I know is required to be successful. I try to instill this lession and pray he gets it soon.

We dont know how the pandemic will evolve. USA is opening up. UK is struggling to open up. We hope the vaccines work, we hope that a medicine is discovered soon so we know the pandemic is more in control, if not over. We live with plethora of worries in our brain and prayer in our heart so he be safe, secure, so he learns, grows, be happy, get a great job, get a great girl, cherubic children and have a fulfilling life.