You are very right about that, Anita. I had never really thought of it that way. I cannot really comment on its veracity since I’ve not practically tested it myself, but my parents often say – “if it weren’t for fear of your grandma’s anger, we’d have given you freedom long back”. But there was this incident back in school days when I was cycling to school and met with a small accident. When I came home, my grandma didn’t say anything but my mom shouted at me and after that, I had to reduce going out on cycle and completely stopped after leaving school.

Now sadly, it’s not just due to family but as a result of the inertia developed from years of this situation, I myself don’t feel like going out anywhere. I don’t feel like attending parties or even visiting friends, and merely sit at home on the PC or reading books. I don’t feel like I have confidence to even to go to a shop and buy something since I was never given money to use and to this day, if I ever needed anything, it was always my parents paying next to me with the wallet, never me. I guess the neighbour was right in a way saying I’ve become a dummy. Will take a good deal of time to change myself, and then become independent in true sense of the word.