Kal, Aaj aur Kal

A few days ago, on a bus ride home (home being iisc as of now) i started thinking about my life and how i got to be me. Its amazing, but when i think about it i myself find it hard to believe how much i've changed in the past few years.

Since i was a little kid, i have always been kinda lost....not exactly sure of who i was or what i wanted. I have always been surrounded by relatively dominant personalities, my DAD, sis, grandmom and even mom is some cases (no fault of theirs, just who they are!), the end result being that you have a relatively clueless kid with a really impressionable mind surrounded by ppl who know exactly what they want. Since then, i got into this habit of trying to be like the people around, my way of trying to fit in i guess! And it manifested itself in pretty irritating ways sometimes, the worst affected being my sister!!! Poor thing, she had to bear the brunt of being my idol!!! I wanted to do everything she did...go to school like her, talk like her...everything you can think of!!! Hell i actually learnt to write by writing over her words in her school notebook...played with and broke most of her toys too!!!hehe....Sorry babes, for being such a pain in the neck (i had to stop myself from using more graphic language on the off chance that my mom reads this!!hehe).

Suffice to say, i went through most of my childhood, being exactly what people around me wanted...as long as they were happy i must be doing things right!!!model child and all....in short BORING!!!I doubt anyone who knows me now will believe it, but i was shy as hell!i barely if ever went anywhere without my mom, i spoke less...and that too only with girls.never had a guy as a good friend for ages...and worst of all, i never met anyone who i had stuff in common with or who didnt think i was kinda weird (being a teacher's daughter didn't wuite help either!!). So once again, i became what they wanted me to become.They all thought i was their good friend, when they didnt know me at all.

Looking at all this, moving to Pune has done wonders for me!!!I sometimes wish i'd grown up in a big city like that, (at least compared to raigad it seemed big to me then!!!)i would've probably been very different! For the first time i had real friends, though i had rough patches there too. And it gave me my best friends sanika, manasi and of course ajay!!! And my fave place of all in Pune is the University!!! I think the 5 years i spent there were like a whirlwind for me...i totally did a 180 degree change, except this time i was being me!!!I had a great set of friends..both guys and girls!! I especially have to thank the guys in my group, for being such great friends. I spent like 70% of my time with them, and turned into this total buddy type person. They ogled at girls in front of me, swore in front of me (occasionally!) and basically totally forgot that i was a girl!!! But i had loads of fun with them, and learnt a lot too. Dont get me wrong, some of my best memories are of night outs with the girls, but guys talk abt such a huge variety of stuff, its fascinating!!! And the best thing about the group as a whole was, no judgment!!! i could be myself, act crazy, dance away to glory and they didnt mind at all. its an unbelievably liberating feeling.....acceptance like that comes rarely!!

And now that i'm in a totally new city, people seem to think i've always been this way!! its pretty funny actually...and i'm sure that most people wud think that i'm kidding (if were not for the excruciating detail in which i've written this post...making it so boring that there's no doubt that its true!!!). Well now i think i'm actually getting crazier by the day...probably making up for my childhood that i wasted being serious and boring!!! so here's hopin i can sustain this craziness through my phd (lord knows it can extinguish enthusiasm of all sorts if u let it!). Sorry for this extremely long and boring post...guess i now know why actors tend to talk so much when they get nostalgic on receiving a lifetime's achievement award and stuff (thats me getting filmi again, u can prepare urself for a post on that in the near future!hehe).

LOOKING BACK AT THE YEARS,
I CAN NOW SEE
HOW SCARED I WAS...SCARED TO BE ME..
IT AINT GONNA BE EASY,
BUT I'VE MADE A START...
ONE BY ONE..TEARING MY FEARS APART..
A DAY WILL COME...
WHEN I'LL FINALLY UNDERSTAND..
THIS GIRL IN THE MIRROR..WHO HOLDS MY HAND.