Determined minds find path to success

“Nanna, do you want a laptop?” I asked my father while he was visiting me and my family. Nanna’s usual response whenever I asked him if he would like me to get him a pair of hiking shoes more suitable for going on hikes than his dress shows, or upgrade his luggage to wheeled suitcase so he didn’t need to carry them, always was, “Why do I need them?” Once, after a mile into the hike, his shoes gave up on him and he sat on a rock and waited for us to complete the hike and come back. He then agreed to stop by a shoe store on our way back to get sturdier hiking shoes. As expected, his answer to my laptop question was, “Why do I need one and what am I going to do with it?” I said, “You could book train tickets online …”, and I spent half an hour talking about all the other things he could do with a laptop. I finally added, “We can send each other emails, and share pictures”. Now I got his attention and he smiled and said, “Now you are talking. Why didn’t you lead with that, I am on board if you are willing to teach me”.

I ordered one before he could change his mind and then the work began to teach him how to use a laptop. He had ample time for learning since whenever Amma and Nanna did their 10,000 mile trek traveling non-stop for 30 hours or so to come see us, they stayed for close to three months. The first week would go away in jetlag while they insisted they didn’t suffer from jetlag while we could clearly see they were tired and sleeping at odd times falling asleep on the couch. They kept themselves busy while the rest of the family was busy with work and school schedules during the week and we spent time together in the evenings and weekends. We traveled to Yellowstone, Black Canyon of Gunnison, Santa Fe area, and Rocky Mountain National Park with them. Amma was fascinated by Grizzlies and finally got a glimpse of a momma with her cubs from a distance from the comfort of our car. They enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren and assured me that parenting was hard and it would all be well in the end.

So, there was more than enough time to teach Nanna how to use the laptop and my spouse and I got him started right away. The first hurdle was learning to use the mouse, learning when to use the right click and when to use the left click. It took Nanna a good couple of weeks to master the mousing technique. He was very dedicated, spending the entire day while I was at work practicing the skills he learned the night before. He overcame the first hurdle of how to start, how to enter his password after having realized he had to press enter after typing in the password. He became a student again taking detailed notes on concepts such as folders, files, and applications and how to install new applications and so on in a small college notebook. In just three months he became a savvy user of Linux and got a good grasp of command line interface. He learned how to program a router so he could set it up at their home after he got his internet connection. It was fulfilling to watch his enthusiasm about learning new skills in his late sixties, excitement after learning each new skill, and his dedication to not give up even when it was frustrating to understand new concepts. Above all his willingness and openness to allow his daughter to teach him.

I had to check myself from jumping into doing it for him as I watched his struggle to learn these new skills. I had to remind myself how he let me make decisions letting me do things on my own and in my own way, only stepping in to provide moral support. I couldn't help but remember my 10th grade incident when our final exam tests leaked somehow. It was a statewide test administered by state education board officials. Our finals lasted a full two weeks as we took tests in each of our subjects on a designated day. A classmate knocked on our door late at night the day before the first exam bearing a gift of the leaked test for the next day. Nanna made sure I had the opportunity to decide if I wanted to take the leaked tests or not. The only thing he said to me was that I would be at a disadvantage since some or most of my classmates might have chosen to take advantage of this leak. They would have the upper hand since they know what would be on the final exam. He didn’t tell me what I should do and let me decide.

I decided that I wouldn’t feel good about my 10th grade results if I were to look at the leaked test. When I refused to look at the test, my classmate was puzzled and surprised, and looked disappointed as he walked away. Nanna said he was happy with the decision I made and was proud of me for having the confidence to not be tempted by the opportunity to cheat. He told me if I didn’t know my stuff the day before the exam, looking at the test and learning the answers wouldn't help and that I wouldn’t be happy with the result even if it was stellar. He was right and I did just fine in the end and proud of the choice I made.

Teaching Nanna computer skills brought back the memories of how he supported me in achieving my goals taking to my college interviews. I smiled at the image of me sitting behind him riding side saddle style on his scooter to nearby colleges an hour or two away and traveling by buses or trains to the far away ones. I met many of his friends and our extended family on these trips as it was important to Nanna to connect with family and friends and he set aside  time to visit as many people as he could during our stay. After we got done with the college visit, we went all over town visiting several families during the day. He came from a large family and even larger extended family. His father was the youngest of seven children and his mother was the oldest of six children. There were numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins spread all around in the region and wherever we went, there was someone related to us to visit. We would stay at one of our relative’s houses and head out after eating a sumptuous breakfast and drinking delicious coffee. We roamed around town the whole day visiting relatives and friends. The family providing boarding didn’t expect us to have lunches and dinners with them. As these thoughts of visiting family and friends all those years ago washed over me, I remembered Nanna refusing to move from India to live close to me after saying, “I want to be able to spend time with my kith and kin, celebrating good occasions and mourning the bad ones.”.

As I watched him sitting across from me hunching over the keyboard, I realized I didn’t give much thought to Nanna’s problems and challenges when I was growing up. He was a giant and invincible and also an enigma just like a deep blue lake hiding what is beneath its calm exterior. Now that I am a parent, I fully understood how hard it was for Nanna to watch me leave home to pursue my dreams on the other side of the world. Amma told me how he would wake up screaming my name when he had a nightmare dream about some danger I was in. He never discouraged me or shared his fears with me. Nanna brought me back to this world by asking me a question about how to create a new folder to move his tax related documents.

Soon enough it was time for Nanna and Amma to head back home to Rajahmundry where Nanna would resume driving in chaotic traffic dodging vendors on bicycles, cows sprawling in the middle of roads, cars, and people. He clutched his new laptop bag as he disappeared behind the security lines at the airport after waving bye to us. Every single morning after that there was an email from him waiting in my Inbox for the next eight years until he passed away. Having started with the question, “What would I do with a laptop”, he ended up using it for booking train tickets and hotels when he went traveling, paying electric bills and utility bills, avoiding long lines, and preparing and filing taxes. As online services grew in India he kept adapting to use them very quickly. He told me he didn’t need to stand in long lines for hours on end to buy train tickets, pay electric bills, he could just do all that from the comfort of his home. He learned how to burn CDs and started saving his pictures from his trips, pictures of his family, children, grandchildren, and music Amma loved on CDs. He started helping friends and family with their taxes and other work they could do online like applying for health insurance and so on. He became a very savvy user switching over to managing his finances on his laptop, online shopping and more importantly taking meticulous backups of his work periodically saving them on external drives. We would get panic calls on occasion when something went wrong, but those calls became less frequent as years went by.

As they say in Telugu, మనసుంటే మార్గముంటుంది (Manasunte margamuntundi) which means, “Determined minds find a path to success", or "Where there is a will there is a way”. Nanna's putting his mind to learning and his dedication to be open to mastering new skills was an inspiration and continues to help me get over the fears of the unknown. I try very hard every single day to be a parent just like he was to me as I struggle to watch as my children struggle with the challenges in their lives. But I do know better than to jump in to solve their problems for them. It is hard and when I slip up, I give them the freedom to tell me to back off. My role as a parent is to provide them with resources to help them build their lives. Just like my dad, I am determined to not pave the road for my children. I just want to help them pave their life paths just like Nanna did. Above all, Nanna was an example of a man who set his mind to master new skills well into his seventies and stayed a life long learner until his death.