From phoolkumari to phatakdi!

1^ststd: Me (Wailing) : Nobody wants to play doll- house or hide and seek with me mommy! (sobs) S says I’m not on her team!

Now, has the whole world suddenly started revolving around me? No one can ever compare the boycut girl who was always made to dress up as a boy in dances, who wrote her D’s and B’s wrong till the 3^rd standard, who was soo drastically skinny that she was partially invisible, who was  snotty and kept on  wailing all the time… to ME! Then came the pigtail phase. Pigtails, homework, spectacles and lot of parachute hair oil.. Again I have no significant memories of that phase except that of crying at every possible situation from an ant bite to a bad grade . I remember being a demure, pious, homely girl and a super- sensitive “nazuk kali”. And now,bibbidi bobbidi boo!

Here, enters the freakishly familiar “phatakdi”! “Now, FINALLLY you look like a junior college diva”, said C. And I was like “That bad?”  with an “OH YEAHHH!” grin, flicking the “I-don’t-know-what-you-call-them” hair strands or bangs falling over my cheeks. Had I been at home that time,I would have a million bobby pins sticking out of my head.  So, yeah it happened gradually. First went the spectacles, then my zits (okay eww) and then few locks of my precious hair.. Sniff sniff. . But it was all okay.  I was actually getting noticed. I had never demanded it but was always encountering a hey! Nice hair/ such bright eyes, or something. Suddenly I started hearing my name in all the directions. I was metamorphosing from “miss rote memorizer” to “miss cultural”. But little did I know that too much sweet can also make one choke real bad!  I don’t know whether I am being paranoid or something but trust me, being in the limelight is really obnoxious. Never ever get a makeover and try to look graceful. Next thing you might be chased by a paparazzi! Or get hit on the nose by an autograph book! Okay I am exaggerating but yes, I was almost pushed from the stairs thanks  to a huge crowd of primary kids begging.. no not begging, threatening me to sign their books on teachers day.  Also people involuntarily start treating you like you are a piece of porcelain! There arrive a series of “OHH! She cant’s !” As in Ohh! she can’t – climb the rock, jump over the fence, blow gum, hit the volleyball, step on a cockroach, eat a chilly, look at a lizard, lift a chalk!

So now I really miss being ugly and dorky. I miss being invisible and I miss being scorned at! It sounds stupid but I am tired of the googlywooglywushes, the “aww that’s cute” and the fake smothering . So I finally decided to go back to the pavilion. I chose the mundane stuff over the phenomenal! The spectacles and the oil and the pigtails came steering back in and the limelight was totally put off. And here I am, enjoying the sheer pleasures of solitude, expecting to receive no further attention whatsoever.  So whenever I see any curly little featherhead shining in the limelight, I smile in pity, mumbling to myself, “Been there, done that! Desperate times”...