For some reason, either genetics or upbringing, I have had a confident and self assured persona as a child, and continually as I have aged. Paradoxically, I have many internal complexes and insecurities. Being a naturally curious person, I have observed such paradoxes in almost everyone. As a kid, people were charmed by my mischievous eyes and talkativeness, and that bypassed the lack in attractive looks. My father, a feminist who is most likely responsible for my confidence and self assurance, lost no opportunity to rub in how not good looking I was. Jumi told me a few years earlier he did the same with her although she was far ahead of me in the department of looks. That really surprised me as Jumi has always been the cute and pretty one and I was completely unaware that she suffered from the 'I am ugly' complex too.
Little children below the age of 8 years never think of themselves as little children. Each time I had a birthday, I was convinced I was a big girl. I remember feeling that way when I was 7 and then when I turned 8 and the day I turned 12, I was totally convinced that everyone else thought I was grown up too. At 7 years of age, I was in class 3 in NDA English school. There was this cute and smart dude in our class of 7 year olds. I won't take names as he might not take it well. I mean you never know, so why risk it. I did try to reach him on facebook some years back but he didn't accept my request. I had a crush on him (in class 3!), a serious one, and sent him an anonymous note, never anticipating the big bang effect that would follow.
While walking back from school the next day, this dude took the walk back with me. I was smug, the note was not signed, so he could never trace it to me, I was certain of that. At the turning to D2, while crossing the concrete circle with the pristine white spider lilies, he asked me if I had written it. But obviously, and very confidently I denied it. Apparently, he had sherlock homed the note, matched it with my hand writing (I had made the effort to change the writing style to make it untraceable to me, bad attempt obviously). I was caught. Embarrassed. Awkward. Like the Big Bang effect, this awkwardness spread further and further and further and from that moment onward, we didn't talk to each other forever. Despite living in the same locality and crossing paths several times. We even wrote our class 12 board exams in the same college and the same room and slid away quietly.
Holi was THE NDA festival. The array of laddus, barfis, nimkis, sweets, bhujias, and the paraphernalia prepared in every home were displayed on tables at the entry door to the homes:
a) so that everyone who came to splash and smear the colours could have easy access to the sweets and
b) by blocking the entry door with the table, no one could enter the homes and dirty them.
After all the adults visited their friends and all the kids were done throwing water balloons at each other on the roads which were our play territory ('Children at play, stop and see'-signboards in red warned all drivers), as per NDA traditional dictate, everyone would head for the lush green golf course on the plains between the officers mess and the D2 hills. Adults went to the golf course for the drinks, we kids would head towards a large iron water tank, which was open and full of water for whatsoever reason, outside and to the left of the bar, into which adventurous kids would be dunked.
Suddenly, I must have been around 13 then, the dude (refer to anonymous note) appeared and smeared my face with colours and said,
"Happy Holi."
I smeared him back and replied,
"Happy Holi",
very coyly, felt really awkward and did the disappearing trick, completely besotted.
At 20 when I was in medical school in Guwahati, a cousin of my classmate Shibee came to visit her in the hostel where we resided. I was going out on a date with my to-be husband, met Shibee's cousin at the gate, so Shibee introduced me to her cousin who was on a vacation visit to Guwahati from the engineering college where he was studying.
Later Shibee told me that this cousin was a friend of the anonymous note dude and had something to tell me, but didn't once he realized that I was already hitched. Needless to say, I slapped my forehead metaphorically several times in the last few years.
Communication is the key, which despite all of my talkativeness, was a key I didn't have. And despite all my confidence, insecurity about my looks led me to missed opportunities on multiple occasions.
