20 something now…..

I used to be fascinated. In my childhood I mean. I wanted to wear crisp clothes what any random didi I saw on the road wore. I wanted to have my own handbag, with the secret contents it held, which by the way I never got to see. I wanted to wear lipstick as and when I wanted to and I tried my best to fit into my mother’s heals which were always too big for my tiny feet. I secretly wore my mom’s saree and flapped the pallo over my head, and acted the way my mom behaved in front of my grand mother in front of the mirror. I studied hard in school to top in the exams (which I never did btw), and sulk every time my best friend scored a little more than me. I felt betrayed. I wanted to hit puberty fast, as if it were my license to adulthood, to freedom. I gossiped of schools being built on graveyards, and the ghost which resided in the last washroom. I wanted to have an impressive accent, I liked to be appreciated for every little good thing I did, I desired for all my teachers to like me, and somehow being responsible to keep the black board clean was a job of high importance. I wanted to be big, successful and in the lime lite. I wanted my grades high so I could get in that good college like my senior did.

But today, as I was awaiting the copies of my freshly printed resumes, which boasted my qualification and achievements, I happened to see two young girls. I heard one of them talk over the cell phone (the benefit which I didn’t have). Her young mind was analyzing a test she had written in the morning and then she said “I had studied, I swear. But even she (maybe referring to friend) said that the questions were from outside” I stared at my huge black bag which had the stuff I could need, I could feel the warmth from my freshly painted lipstick, and the curls of my properly combed hair bouncing over my shoulders, and I smiled secretly wishing to be that little girl, with oil dripping from her head.