18-03-2008

Flashback to a baby just born and I see her crying. The light that she witnesses for the first time pierces through her eyes and she looks for something familiar, someone to hold her like her own. My mom did I presume, because that’s the touch I would recognize anywhere and it gave me a meaning, my existence.

A couple of months down the line there is always a struggle to say the first words, to have the first walk and to smile in the company of the right one’s. I must have done that too, though I started talking so late that my parents feared I was dumb. I was the laughing stock of the house, the kid who never speaks, so my mom says. It was my grandfather who used to say that she will speak making sense and sing beautifully and that was the second most popular joke. Call it his foresight because like all normal children I did speak and like the gifted one’s I sang and I started to associate to things that sounded similar to me.

I was given a name amongst a lot of choices (and I am glad my grandfather picked this one because it was the best among them) and my identity was given a push. Like perhaps a dog may not understand the relevance of Tomy until conditioned into believing it’s his name and he comes running to you happily knowing that he is being called. I was conditioned too and my name gave my existence the exclusivity, that’s what I believe. My nickname made me happier because the sound of it made me feel pampered.

Schooling was an attempt to stand out, academically or otherwise, because my parents in the audience would gleam with happiness saying “There she is”, looking at me on the stage. I was recognized as the good singer and a good orator in school, until a time, it changed after a while. I was also the rebel in school, the naughtiest kid and then the loser on the first bench with no friends. I lived it all to look for the one world that truly reflected me and I found one. I also learnt a lot and it changed the “me” that I was, like the same learned friend puts it “learning is the fastest way to earn self respect”, I did quite a lot of that earning and learnt more about me.

And I am still learning. I learnt something valuable yesterday, that perhaps I am not some of the things that I firmly believed (or voiced) I was. I picked my friends (you can say vice versa too), I was given a family (a wonderful one at that), I was given an environment and I related to the things that got me closer to me. Why then was I choosing something that made me the person I fear being, the one who would compromise on being herself and jeopardize and distort the world that is hers’. One does do that, that’s when it is termed special in my case and such moments last for a special day or perhaps two. My attempt to have someone in my world made me almost distort it. I have done that before and I was too scared to realize it back then. I learnt it after getting “the kick”, but this time I was made to realize by the one friend who played his part perfectly. That was a moment that enlightened me in many ways.

When you talk of individuality, you look for things that define you. It may be your family, your friends, the one you love, to a certain extent, but it is primarily the person they accept you as. You have a twisted world of your own and the people you choose or get are the people of YOUR world, accepting you in your crooked ways. Why then do we accommodate things in our world (or people) so they fit? They can’t make your world any more special for the mere reason that they don’t accept you for the person you are. All my friends are different, I mean they aren’t alike. They represent the varied facets of my world and reflect that for me. I guess that’s why I look for immense space from them and maintain the bond over the years because I want to reflect the multi dimensions from time to time, not always. But over a few days (call it staying alone blues) I saw myself constantly being in touch with one facet of my world, reflecting on it and despite the much required break continuing to do so to the brink of accommodating it. Why? I don’t know. But I am glad I was made to look into other things that would define me, that exist as synonyms in my life. I would always be in touch with that facet as it reflects the “me” that I want to be understood as, but then I have more to me so I should look at the other facets as well.

The reason for this post is perhaps hard to understand because it is something personal but I am adding this last paragraph to put the many above in concise. When you make friends, be with your family or rebel, your reason for doing so is that you value your existence. The things around you mirror you and you like it that way, you end your life when you realize you have accommodated things to such a degree that the mirror image isn’t yours’. If everything boils down to you then why compromise. A friend in “love” with a guy I know makes innumerable efforts to fit into his world (and make him fit into hers), why? If he is the man of your world he will reflect you. I know mine does and I am happy that the things that exist in my world with the people, reflect me. The day it stops to happen my world will lose its meaning.