It started that Christmas when I was five…my Grandma had got me a pretty Green-Red Christmas colour dress... I never liked wearing dresses…as people call them “FROCKS”…the name itself makes me go like “what!come again,,,did u say frocks and me in the same sentence???? ….”
A wedding that Christmas was lined up and everyone in the small town was ready in glittering sarees, polka dot salwars kamiz, heavy earings and loaded gold chains….Girls of my age particularly my best friend wore beautiful FROCKS and shining high heels…and my mom for once wanted me to wear that green-red Christmas frock. As usual I was into wearing jeans and tees with white sneakers…I loved white sneakers..i rejected. I was in the room with my mom and chachi. They were convincing me to wear that frock and as usual I wasn’t interested and rather I was throwing tantrums so that they take that frock away from me. Anyway! So my mom called me after my tantrum was over…She said-“why don’t you like this dress! All your friends are wearing them…you wear jeans all the time…cant you for once wear a girly dress???” with my strayed eyes I told her “NO!”…she said, “ whatever you are choosing is gonna look odd in public. That everyone will be well dressed and you like a boy dressed. And later on you cannot change it over there….So I am warning you…”These were the lines I still commit to my memory and have lately realized…is true in my life and means much more now than it used to that December!
One girl born in a family which had no girls as such in the previous generation gets love from everyone…be it grandfather, grandmother, chacha, chachi, mom, dad, brothers and various other relatives….She is loved by everyone in the family filled with engineers…She had that father who got her everything she would ever want in life before time…that mother who got her all the love that she wanted…that grandfather who let her run behind zillion of dogs and made her fearless….that grandmother who told her tales about the beautiful world! She was born as a princess!But that girl didn’t choose that life of a princess rather….she chose something that was more comfortable to her even though it was odd to public and that she could do nothing about it later on…it was a like a one time investment…
I am just another running face in the crowd...i use local trains to go to college…eat all kind of junkies…find happiness in the unplanned and small…small things…laughs rolling on the floor…wears whatever which doesn’t match.. Hang around in malls…Average in studies….plays the guitar with whatever chords…sings songs about her life…screams... squeals… laughs until i drop down on the floor….annoys people to the core….put up fights and everything which every other girl here out in Mumbai does…
Life in small cities are so much better than the ones in d metro’s…it is so easy to live and the people there don’t have evil mind… no ones mean and everyone is honest…helpful...chivalrous…kind and so much loving than the show off kisses and love made in big cities for “Public Display Affection” with an empty heart.
I am traveler …thankx to my dad for that….hehe…I have been to a lot of different places..stayed there and figured out the culture and everything…And trust me mertro cities suck!
A princess…woha!wait a min…if you are think the word “PRINCESS” is like the one you saw in The Princess Diaries…then no its so not that way….Princess here refers to that girl who could possibly get everything in a middle class family……”Everything here means…respect…love….stuffs…care….warmth….good education….etc”…
6 weeks from now…I was sitting on Panvel station waiting for my train to come so I could board on it and reach home….i called up one of my friends to check if how she was doing…the conversation was like:
Me :Hey hie…well just called you up to ask if…. how you were doing?
Reciever: I’m doing good…just waiting for my driver to pick me up… I have to go to a Flower show with my cousions and I am getting late”
Me: Ow! A Flower show! (I guess I went 2 the last flower show when I was 9..Nevermind) well! I see…you seem to be loving plants…flowers..bark…trees..roots..(was I drunk???)
Rec:No well! I always used to go to flower shows from the time I was 1 and a half years old…I like beautiful things….
Me: Ya…who dosnet! (why wont you?…you yourself are beautiful…wouldn’t you like beautiful flowers…???)
Rec: Hey I guess my dad’s here…I’ll get home and then talk to you..
Me: No issues!
Sitting on the station that conversation put me into a new array of dimension X and Y perhaps….i felt that Z also started existing for that moment. Nevermind! My brain started to think in X and Y dimensions….i though my brain was just limited to X…Anyway! The point is…. What a life my friend has…she goes to movies with her parents every Saturday night….The largest clubs with them…Too good at studies….Beautiful….Rich and what not…whatever a girl wants…Me and my friends call her…”FATE GIRL” everything she has….believe me everything…she spends hours in Saloon…hours reading books in the most famous library…Oh! Man you wont believe she always tops in the class…(come again..she stands 1st in class….Believe me…! Yes she does…)..wears all princess clothes and trust me all the guys fall for her….Her knowledge about everything is mind blowing and she herself is so charming…she is like the show stoppers in the fashion world or maybe the President, in our country, India….summing up together she is the one whom your parents…friends and family or any other person on the planet would want to be.HONESTLY!
I could have been exactly like her….my parents wanted me to wear all beautiful girly clothes…they got me everything before time….i could have stayed with my father and read millions of books and gained knowledge…with my mother I would have been wearing all sober clothes and would have learnt all charming and respectful conversational skills….with my chacha…I would have been the masters of coding…with my grandfather I would have learnt horse ridding and with my grand mother I would have been like the ideal girl… With the family so educated and everyone’s an engineer I would have had a princess life….If only I had chosen that red-green frock that Christmas!
If you look at me closely…you will see I have nothing at all to worry about in life…I have amazing open minded parents…I have everything one requires to live comfortable life….i have a respected and well educated background and everything…just everything…I say I want it and then next moment I get it…life is so wonderful…but hell yea! I made it worse…yea its me to be blamed…or perhaps the decision I took during that Christmas night with that green-red frock!The elaboration to this wired statement of mine is I never stayed back with my parents at home…coz I always wanted to play play and play…go out do adventurous things…I never cared of what people thought of me since the time I was born I suppose….i never wanted 2 ride with my parents everywhere in that Blue car which in that town only 3 people owned…No! No! I wanted to walk…use autorikshaws…go and chase dogs…wanted to do things on my own…I was barely seen at home all my childhood because I was busy in doing something or the other…..My mom had put me into vocals…harmonium and painting and dance when I was 2 ½…..and she wanted me to be that respected classical singer who plays harmonium…(yalk yalk yalk) and all those big people kinda stuffs and people appreciating me and all that. No! No! I didn’t want that…Noways!not me….”y on this planet me??? I don’t like that stuff and it keeps me busy and all weekends and that’s so not my stuff!”but it continued till I was 13..oh! my god!You are very lucky in your life if you haven’t seen me singing during that phase…with tears I used to make such funny noises…oh my god!people who remind me of those days with the demonstrated vocals…I hate them for sure…I guess I wasn’t that bad…or maybe I was…But hell yea…I still passed vocal exams including painting ,acts etc…I love to see my certificates now but still harmonium was so not my kinda stuff and dare you say harmonium infronta me…I would rather kill myself than to hear that…its good…but I don’t like it!No No!no chance.Noway!
I chose to go out and do what I wanted to..sing what I wanted to…breathe the air and let myself be happy at the end of the day….everything in that small city was fine… but one day my dad made us shift to a place I never thought I would ever in my life would visit …ya we never visited but we shifted instead…making new friends is easy but at the place you stay or near by places…but a different state…why on this planet people are so different from place to place…anyways adjusting was something I was never interested in and I didn’t care if I had to let go off everything because I always loved myself and even if I was alone I was so happy….i used to be happy in myself and I didn’t want nything on this planet to be mine to complete me and to keep me/make me happy! But big city...big people changed my life….i always had mediocre range of friends ….but big city offers you the worst things…people here are mostly…well on the scale of 10…I guess 8.9 is the kind of selfish…self obsessed….dirty minded and mean……… and in this crowd to figure out whom to trust is a very big question mark…
As life moves we all move on and so I started to hang around with all range of friends…from the ones who drink and smoke…to the one’s who make one night stands…I, a girl from small town dosent even know anything about this cruel ugly desperate metropolitan city people…..here in big cities…you can see it all…every dirty act of humiliation…nevermind…i started to move into a city like this: by blowing away the dust and keeping my feet at every minimum inch of the tile which was clean…
Moving on…well yes moving on to the city …the easiest things to learn are jealousy…ego…use people….hurt others and get into all the worst things possible…you cant run away and you cant hide from all these things…all you can do is be a part of it or else bear with the system without indulging yourself into it…the second option was the one, I opted for…I didn’t know it would be all that difficult but yes it was…its like acting like an animal even though you are not one in a jungle….i chose to be the kangaroo…haha…nothing related to the topic…I know…but still..i guess I kinda like kangaroos…well I was the kangaroo and not the kid of the kangaroo who requires his mom to carry him/her ..okay fine “it”….from place to place…I tried to be independent…I started to make decisions on my own and jump across everywhere almost and browse the ugly world…I went through a lot of hard times..the literally tough ones…well they wernt all that hard but due to my choice of rejection towards the green-red frock had put me in this condition…
Lets rewind a little and commit to my memory…owakay…if I would have stayed with the green-red frock…people at the party would have admired me and said good things about me…If I acted a little like girls…I would have got married by now..haha(I saved my ass) and rather the other things….if I would have shifted I would have made scholar’s as my best friends and would have spent weeks planting tree and flowers…eating nutritious food…wearing frocks and having drivers taking me and my friends to the most interestingly boring plays…book fair and other classic stuffs…I could have been a real knowledgeable person…I would have had a SOPHESTICATED life which had books and outings and respect for parents…saloons and expensive gifts and clothes and all the things which requires to be perfect…but I guess I didn’t want that…I chose my friends who were into enjoying life and making the maximum of the given time…I chose people who loved walking streets with me…play and do hilarious humiliating things….i got a bunch of people who just were crazy and all they knew was to enjoy life…I started to get carried away by that wind of “cool people”….well company does matter so here I was all…a big city girl….i kept myself original and went with the flow…it price tagged me everything…I didn’t realize I wasn’t myself anymore and I got in almost all the disastrous condition where I knew nothing would ever save me from death…wait! If u r think some crap then for Christ sake …don’t….i didn’t do anything crap…I just got into the dark woods and got lost…..i thought my way to approach life would be easy and I took everything for granted…honestly I did wrong things…I do realize now that these things were wrong but kinda different from the WRONG THINGS definition… I got into cutting myself….i was addicted…i felt good about it…perhaps it was the only way I used to punish myself for caring about people who are not worth caring…doing things which was so not worth doing and in the end “fall”….i know this is wrong but there are somethings you wish you didn’t have done or could undo from your life and you realize that there is nothing you can do about it….thats when you punish yourself…I don’t think people in big cities punish themselves…but hell yea I did by hurting myself…grades went low…wrong things seemed nice to me…wait a min…wrong things don’t imply drinking smoking doping and night stands….its just getting to know wrong people and try to be with them because they want you to, else you live your life as a nerd…life is a bitch and ive accepted it…
And so on the Panvel station I looked upon at myself for once in those 19 minutes and thought if I could have been what my parents wanted me to be…I would have had that life of a princess….good grades….a good job…parents happy…very respected in the society and most loved…..amazing clothes….awesome shoes…the best bakery would have served me the fresh warm cakes…ball dances at parents office party…going in seminars…wining gold medals in studies…I would have been the one who would buy the most expensive things on this planet and eat dinner with forks and spoons…would have watched and explored places in the most delicate cars….i would have been the delicate darling…but I guess…It never felt like me….like I would have never stayed happy…I can do all these things but ive passed that stage where I could actually seek hands from my elders to walk through the path they made for me…but I guess I left their hand long back to make my own way with my choice and my principles…I fell again and again and most of the times the light on my way seemed to be blinding…I actually cannot go back and start everything over again and choose that princess life. Neither I can go and undo things that I did were wrong…neither I can go and tell my elders and everyone the long story of who I am now and what ive become and explain them the entire metamorphosis process….All I can do is go with what I have chosen….what I have chosen is my parents… friends…rusty music…my poems…some sports…and a career course….its getting very difficult for me to move ahead and make my own decisions…there are too many holes and I don’t know where I am stepping is a stone or a hole………. It seems like i am standing on some bridge and there are only two ways…. one leads to darkness and the other to sunshine…I don’t know which way to go and there is no one I can hold on to..because I was born alone and I have to find my way alone…
I just want to apologize to some people in my life….my dad would be the first one…
Dad if you are reading this…I really don’t know how I let myself into this “making my way” thing…I guess I would have been an ideal daughter and a far much better person than what I am now…but dad,I guess I wouldn’t have been happy as much as I am now…I know I have let you down like zillion times and I am ashamed of it too and I just want you to know…I promise you that some day I would actually make you proud…someday….i don’t know by doing what I could make you proud…but I know I will because you have given me everything I wanted to ever have without DEMANDING anything in return….i guess I can never be what you wanted me to be and all the bests you thought for me,…but I promise you I would be something someday that you would be for once, proud of, to be called as my Father…I guess ive never said these things to you before and its so kinda weird to blog about it….i hope we wont have any discussion over this when you come home…I love you but please I amnt saying that to you on your face…I just do!i just do…you’ve been the best I could have ever got! I guess I couldn’t be the one you wanted or designed ….dad its just so not me…its so not me…I know you understand what I mean and as you never stopped me from finding my way…I just want to thank you for everything.
Mom…..you are the most beautiful mother I could ever get…I wish I was like you….thanks for making me learn music…art and dance forcefully when I was young…I never knew that when I would grow up I would live for them…I guess you knew that…mom…I know past one year has been the worst for me and I troubled you the most in everyway…thanks for holding on with me…you are just a friends to me and I love you so much for that…I just want you to know that every word I said to you when I was all down and all I knew was ”DEATH”….i take them back…I am really sorry for asking you to kill me because I wasn’t able to hold on….i guess none of the kids on this planet would have begged for death from his/her parents ever and let them down like I did to you…with all the mistakes I did…I wanted to die and I didnt think about you but about myself in spite of me having the most precious thing “you” in my life…thanks so much for always being there…I love you the most and yes I will defiantly do what what you always wanted me to..i love you mom..
My friends…I have too many things to apologize to you all especially to kshiraja and karthik…you both have been there on the worst days of mine and let me survive and make it through….today the positive attitude I have is because of you both…I love you both so much….i made you sick by the way I behaved and everything I said and I know how difficult it is to handle a 49 kg female….i know everyone can guess that.…I love you guys so much….its just beyond words…what you have done for me…and yes it is…I will be thankful to you both throughout my life….
Karthik thanks for forcefully making me do whats right for me and
Kshiraja thanks so much for listening and taking me on the right path…
Apart from the K’s….i would thank a lot other people who have stood by me all the way through and I love you all…thankx for everything!
Lastly the green-red dress which I didn’t choose is the princess life and what I have chosen is the worn out jeans…..so hence this is a new year…with new beginnings…I guess the green-red frock wont be that bad on my jeans! Hahaha!i love you all…
I just want you all to tell me if what I chose that day was worth my life today or its just a mistake….i know I cant change it….but the above mentioned combo of both the choice is another option for me….This is the only best thing about a metropolitan city…it makes you have the worst of experiences and when you over come them, you find real happiness because it provides you with many opportunities……..
And so this ends this spring…..i started writing this last Christmas but completed later…I guess changes good sometimes……things don’t always have to match from the start till the end…like it started with a Christmas and ends with another!hahahhaha!It can be beautiful in its own way…like I feel today!
<3
