There was a girl standing at the door of 5E all those years back. She had a clear, white uniform, stiff and uncomfortable with starch, pink, metal rimmed spectacles which she found cool but actually looked weird on her, and short cropped hair tied back into a tiny ponytail. She wasn't short, but her low self esteem was like a hammer whacked on her head multiple times. It was what shortened her.
She didn't have many friends. She clung to one Class 4 acquaintance, who later on found some other friends and sat on the other side of the class. The girl was pretty much alone.
But she remembered one thing. When she had entered class earlier that morning, the backdrop was beautiful. The glass windows were refracting the streaming sunshine into millions of tiny little rainbow drops, which fell on the front desks and colored our boring, dull copy pages. There was some wild, untamed sunshine, which streamed in directly and hit the roof, painting the walls gold with flecks of dust glowing like fairy dust. She remembered my eyes going wide with beauty and her heart soaring high with happiness. She wanted to jump, she wanted to squeal with joy. The problem was, she wanted to share it with someone. And no one was there. The sight of a wooden table in the corner for company was enough to crush her dreams.
Then she entered. A shy little girl with a ponytail. A ponytail. Great. They already had something in common.
She introduced herself as Natasha. Extremely shy with a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she existed in the oblivion the girl never could afford to.
She turned my head to look around the room. And there sat Natasha, next to a hyper girl who couldn't stop chattering animatedly, not bothering to look whether she had her listener's attention, which was clearly diverted. She smiled at her wide eyed stalker.
The girl smiled back.
Wait. Did you expect her to go talk to Natasha or something? Like, hahaha, what even?! xD
Okay. Maybe that was the thing to do.
The girl didn't do that. She just sat there.
Maybe it was for the better.
They were soon adjusted in the new class and she had friends. Some girls she doesn't talk to now, but used to love and look up to back then, and cordial relations with the rest of the girls. She was still pretty much a loner.
The magic begun in August. The first Sunday. Friendship day. The day everybody had hands filled with friendship bands and they boasted. The day friends were found crying in the washroom because "After NINE YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP, how could she forget my friendship band?! "
The day only ten or twelve colored strings tied out of formality adorned her arms.
She was sure today, she'd walk home with none, and smile sportively as her next door neighbor showed her wonderful bracelets and strings, all hallmarks of friendships made over the years. But Natasha changed that.
She walked into the class room early in the morning, came straight up to the girl with a bright yellow and red friendship band and tied it around her wrist. "Happy Friendship Day".
The girl stared for a while in astonishment and then brought out her own pile of friendship bands she had been secretly hoping to tie. Wordlessly, she tied the band. Then meekly whispered a friendship day greeting.
Natasha probably didn't realize the magnitude of her gesture. She's probably reading this with a blank expression and then she'll laugh at how she had no idea about this, right now.
Well. Class 5 got over. And the girl got over Class 5. Where everyone was crying in the bus at the prospect of leaving their beautiful class and lovely class teacher, the girl was the one person who wasn't. She tried hard to, but she couldn't.
The acceleration of Life and it's moments are best left not described, because comparing it to anything, even the swiftest rollercoasters in Wonderla and Disneyland, won't give you the inkling of the idea of its immensity. The rest of the years passed by like a blur of technicolor. Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall now skip directly to Class 9.
The Interact Club was easily the biggest thing that had happened to me ever since I lost the Prefect Badge I loved. Yes. The girl had changed. Oh she had, She no longer cared. She knew who were there for her and who weren't. Her views, her perspectives. Her values. Her friends. Oh yes. She had friends.
Natasha was in the Interact Club with me. Someone I didn't know. Never knew. She too, had become a different person. Our stories however, varied.
We got to know each other better. Something I had wanted since Day One. The girl I had heard so much about. Her sweetness, her character. I wished I had gone and talked to her that day.
But as time passed by, the illusions begun to crack. I no longer saw the perfect girl many envied. I saw someone who was trying just as hard to fit in as I once was. She wanted friends, she wanted support in times of trouble. She had people close to her, and most of them weren't right. For the first time in my life I realized I was wrong; Our stories did not vary. Her story was just stuck on some pages before mine.
I was on Page "Don't Care. Simply Glare." She was on "Everyone Cares.Everyone Stares". Not a surprise. She was always a slow reader. :P
Natasha is one girl I thought I had the fortune to play counselor to. Giving her my half baked advice and feeling a sense of accomplishment. Making her realize her hidden, untapped potential. She was also the one girl that proved all my assumptions wrong.
I wasn't the counselor here.
Her constant praise, her constant appreciation, I was taken aback. I read all of our chats and every single one of them spoke of a person that couldn't possibly have been me. She puts pressure on my weak points, on the confidence that still isn't there. And that brain which has been labelled "dumb" by some?
Well. It has a whole lobe of common sense.
She is Superwoman. Her super power is to make people feel better about themselves. Her "Sup" is something I look forward to every day, because someone is there to clean up all the shit my life spews after giving me false hope. Yes, I realize I shouldn't treat her like a toilet cleaner. I can't help it if she does it for free, right?
She listens to my boring stories and my dreams about oblivion and serendipitous incidents, even though she doesn't understand half of it. She sees herself as a tough nut to crack when it comes to beating people at speech and arguments. I see a butterfly's chrysalis. I just wish that someone, the correct force of Nature, helps her emerge out of the cocoon with colors as bright and blinding as the sunlight I love. The things she says sometimes? My eyes widen, like they had on the first day of Class 5.
Her drive, her determination will get her places. One day, she will step out of the oblivion her eyes live in, which she very boringly calls "her comfort zone", and rise like a beautifully composed......"cake".
This is exactly what happens when you run out of metaphors at 12 in the night.
She texts me one night and proudly tells me how she gave her name for Hindi Debate Anchoring, something which makes her legs tremble and her tongue stammer. The admirable part is, she knows she may screw up, but she is hellbent not to. She knows it's a baby step for the already talented, but for someone like her, it's a spark to dry wood, which will one day flame up and bring down buildings with its ferocity.
The cool part of the flame will forever remain, the one you can pass your entire hand through, which solely exists to give light to the lives of the dark. To anchor not just a debate, but hope, encouragement, friendship, trust and appreciation.
To anchor "life".
She didn't have many friends. She clung to one Class 4 acquaintance, who later on found some other friends and sat on the other side of the class. The girl was pretty much alone.
But she remembered one thing. When she had entered class earlier that morning, the backdrop was beautiful. The glass windows were refracting the streaming sunshine into millions of tiny little rainbow drops, which fell on the front desks and colored our boring, dull copy pages. There was some wild, untamed sunshine, which streamed in directly and hit the roof, painting the walls gold with flecks of dust glowing like fairy dust. She remembered my eyes going wide with beauty and her heart soaring high with happiness. She wanted to jump, she wanted to squeal with joy. The problem was, she wanted to share it with someone. And no one was there. The sight of a wooden table in the corner for company was enough to crush her dreams.
Then she entered. A shy little girl with a ponytail. A ponytail. Great. They already had something in common.
She introduced herself as Natasha. Extremely shy with a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she existed in the oblivion the girl never could afford to.
She turned my head to look around the room. And there sat Natasha, next to a hyper girl who couldn't stop chattering animatedly, not bothering to look whether she had her listener's attention, which was clearly diverted. She smiled at her wide eyed stalker.
The girl smiled back.
Wait. Did you expect her to go talk to Natasha or something? Like, hahaha, what even?! xD
Okay. Maybe that was the thing to do.
The girl didn't do that. She just sat there.
Maybe it was for the better.
They were soon adjusted in the new class and she had friends. Some girls she doesn't talk to now, but used to love and look up to back then, and cordial relations with the rest of the girls. She was still pretty much a loner.
The magic begun in August. The first Sunday. Friendship day. The day everybody had hands filled with friendship bands and they boasted. The day friends were found crying in the washroom because "After NINE YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP, how could she forget my friendship band?! "
The day only ten or twelve colored strings tied out of formality adorned her arms.
She was sure today, she'd walk home with none, and smile sportively as her next door neighbor showed her wonderful bracelets and strings, all hallmarks of friendships made over the years. But Natasha changed that.
She walked into the class room early in the morning, came straight up to the girl with a bright yellow and red friendship band and tied it around her wrist. "Happy Friendship Day".
The girl stared for a while in astonishment and then brought out her own pile of friendship bands she had been secretly hoping to tie. Wordlessly, she tied the band. Then meekly whispered a friendship day greeting.
Natasha probably didn't realize the magnitude of her gesture. She's probably reading this with a blank expression and then she'll laugh at how she had no idea about this, right now.
Well. Class 5 got over. And the girl got over Class 5. Where everyone was crying in the bus at the prospect of leaving their beautiful class and lovely class teacher, the girl was the one person who wasn't. She tried hard to, but she couldn't.
The acceleration of Life and it's moments are best left not described, because comparing it to anything, even the swiftest rollercoasters in Wonderla and Disneyland, won't give you the inkling of the idea of its immensity. The rest of the years passed by like a blur of technicolor. Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall now skip directly to Class 9.
The Interact Club was easily the biggest thing that had happened to me ever since I lost the Prefect Badge I loved. Yes. The girl had changed. Oh she had, She no longer cared. She knew who were there for her and who weren't. Her views, her perspectives. Her values. Her friends. Oh yes. She had friends.
Natasha was in the Interact Club with me. Someone I didn't know. Never knew. She too, had become a different person. Our stories however, varied.
We got to know each other better. Something I had wanted since Day One. The girl I had heard so much about. Her sweetness, her character. I wished I had gone and talked to her that day.
But as time passed by, the illusions begun to crack. I no longer saw the perfect girl many envied. I saw someone who was trying just as hard to fit in as I once was. She wanted friends, she wanted support in times of trouble. She had people close to her, and most of them weren't right. For the first time in my life I realized I was wrong; Our stories did not vary. Her story was just stuck on some pages before mine.
I was on Page "Don't Care. Simply Glare." She was on "Everyone Cares.Everyone Stares". Not a surprise. She was always a slow reader. :P
Natasha is one girl I thought I had the fortune to play counselor to. Giving her my half baked advice and feeling a sense of accomplishment. Making her realize her hidden, untapped potential. She was also the one girl that proved all my assumptions wrong.
I wasn't the counselor here.
Her constant praise, her constant appreciation, I was taken aback. I read all of our chats and every single one of them spoke of a person that couldn't possibly have been me. She puts pressure on my weak points, on the confidence that still isn't there. And that brain which has been labelled "dumb" by some?
Well. It has a whole lobe of common sense.
She is Superwoman. Her super power is to make people feel better about themselves. Her "Sup" is something I look forward to every day, because someone is there to clean up all the shit my life spews after giving me false hope. Yes, I realize I shouldn't treat her like a toilet cleaner. I can't help it if she does it for free, right?
She listens to my boring stories and my dreams about oblivion and serendipitous incidents, even though she doesn't understand half of it. She sees herself as a tough nut to crack when it comes to beating people at speech and arguments. I see a butterfly's chrysalis. I just wish that someone, the correct force of Nature, helps her emerge out of the cocoon with colors as bright and blinding as the sunlight I love. The things she says sometimes? My eyes widen, like they had on the first day of Class 5.
Her drive, her determination will get her places. One day, she will step out of the oblivion her eyes live in, which she very boringly calls "her comfort zone", and rise like a beautifully composed......"cake".
This is exactly what happens when you run out of metaphors at 12 in the night.
She texts me one night and proudly tells me how she gave her name for Hindi Debate Anchoring, something which makes her legs tremble and her tongue stammer. The admirable part is, she knows she may screw up, but she is hellbent not to. She knows it's a baby step for the already talented, but for someone like her, it's a spark to dry wood, which will one day flame up and bring down buildings with its ferocity.
The cool part of the flame will forever remain, the one you can pass your entire hand through, which solely exists to give light to the lives of the dark. To anchor not just a debate, but hope, encouragement, friendship, trust and appreciation.
To anchor "life".
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