The difference between You and I

Imagine that six bedroom mansion, loving wife, 3 children, and all the money in the world.  Do I believe in miracles? Heck yes.  Then I think to myself forget miracles lets make it happen.  Growing up my father used to tell me, “Son, there is nothing to big for you to conquer, rather don’t look past the small things, take life day by day and shoot for the stars.”  When I was a youngster I took this quite literal and used to sit in my backyard at night, gaze in the dark night sky, and wonder what life would be like up in the atmosphere with the millions of shinning stars.  Who knew at such a young age I would think of a fairy tale, cartoon like, where I could live on a star.  Metaphorically speaking this is how my life is now; I don’t know where I am going yet I do know where I have started and I will finish this journey and find “the end of the rainbow” no matter what.  Beauty waits now it’s my chance to take it by the horns and live on.

I sit down occasionally and think to myself. “What if I was to run away or pack my bags and move to a foreign land?”  Would is satisfy my needs or just put me in a place where all my demons and faults will be left behind and able me to start a clean fresh life.  I’m a West coast young man born and raised on the farmlands, that’s where I came from and that’s where I am staying. 

Now I consider a whole new lifestyle, that of the character, Jasmine, in Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee.  Looking at my life and recognizing that I was born and raised on a farm and knowing I’m going to live my life as that until I die, I look at Jasmine and see she is a mirror opposite image of me.  Jasmine wants out; she is tired of living her life with the experiences she has faced.  Growing up in the western culture race and gender doesn’t play much of a power difference.  Unfortunately for Jasmine, growing up in Indian Culture females are looked upon as inferior to the population.  It is sad to realize that giving birth to a young baby girl would be looked upon as a mistake on the mother’s part.  For Jasmine she was the fifth of seven girls of nine children born into one big family. 

Jasmine knew growing up that she wanted to become a doctor and with her knowledge that could had been quite easy to accomplish.  But inferiority was her problem and in the Indian culture she was to be married off and become a house wife.  Sadly to say she was married off to Bud whom is a control freak and with no complaints Jasmine does whatever he wants her to.  Bud manipulates Jasmine so much she at times forgets who she is and feels as if she is less than a person. 

In the book Jasmine states that “experience must be forgotten, or else it will kill.”  Jasmine believes that knowing where she started from and where she is now there is no way she can keep on this journey without becoming exiled or even possibly wanting to end her life.  Jasmine knows unless she somehow runs from her past and starts over on a clean slate the past will do nothing good for her other than hurt her. 

In this novel, Jasmine is still struggling to grasp the idea of life itself.  Yes, she is a person whom goes through the normal daily issues as everyone else.  Jasmine will continue to struggle if she chooses to stay and be who she is now.  The only way to win is to battle and to battle you must put up the fight.  She cannot give up her dignity at this point that’s about all she has.