Let me be ME

One of my close friends always tells me that I am an Alice in wonderland. I am an optimist I find possibility in every situation. I say everything is possible, when someone tells me that they don’t think it’s possible, I would ask, ‘why not?’ So this close friend of mine once told me that he loves a girl and he wants to marry her I said, ‘then go tell her’ and he said, ‘I don’t think I should I might lose her friendship.’ I said, ‘She might actually become your lover, you know!’ Guess what! She was waiting for him to propose.  

When I was in school I wanted to take up biology as my major my parents were fine with it, infact they are fine with everything I do. So when I said this to one of my cousin who is considered to be a BIG person at home because she was in the states and being in states at that time was really BIG. She asked, “why do you want to be a doctor?” I said, “No but I want to be a fashion designer.” You should have seen her expression then she looked at me like I said I wanted to be a porn star or something similar to that. “You want to be a fashion designer? Do you know how much money goes into being a fashion designer? You have to spend lot of money on exhibitions and shows! Moreover, your life will be ruined. It will take lot of time to get settled. It is not suitable for middle class family like us.’ I said, ‘Maybe I will become successful!’ I don’t give up that easily so I wrote the entrance and got through, but was placed in Delhi, my dad played sentimental tantrums and made me stay here. My aim was doomed so I stopped stalling and decided to take up a course in English literature and become an English Professor, but I had another villain who said that course is worth nothing. If it’s worth nothing why would so many people study it! Anyway, I am a boring Business Analyst now! A fashion Designer turned Business Analyst!! Can you see at least a bleak relevance?

This might sound crazy I have always dreamt of a very handsome man to be my husband and this from class 8 maybe or should be even before that. I always wanted to have a perfectly handsome husband and a beautiful family with 2 kids. When women see my husband I want them to throw jealousy looks on me. Yea, that was my criteria. I don’t believe in, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and other similar quotes. So when I grew up and reached the age when I should get married (Do we really need an age to get married? I doubt! OK forget it.) reality struck me hard, trust me they are talking business and not marriage. Everybody is forcing me to marry some random guy if the horoscope matched! This is driving me insane. I told them that I want a handsome guy you know what happened? I was receiving e-mails from every corner of the world convincing me to marry and looks doesn’t really matter! Well, It does to me and I am not able to compromise myself on that one factor and why should I? So I tried explaining them what I wanted and everybody turned deaf! I gave up explaining after a point of time. But the ritual keeps going. To me marriage is supposed to happen only if I fall in love with a person or at least feel a connection when you see them, I don’t feel it when I see all the passport size photographs or photos clicked while they were rushing to the loo to pee or like they were just pointed a gun to their head and made to pose in front of an Eiffel tower! Moreover, I am fine with not being married. But they just want me to get married because every other cousin in my family is getting married.

Then another day I was talking about publishing a novel and starting a publishing house then also a magazine. Few of them who heard it looked honestly appalled and they expressed it too. I didn’t understand why! I know it is tough but it is not impossible!  Nothing in this world is! I had only negative things coming from all the directions so that was when I decided that I will not talk to people who do not have the ability to use their mind and think on their own. It is true I might sound aggressive but these people are so spineless they cannot take the risk! Life without risks will be filled with regrets, because when you hear from someone who followed your dream and became successful (that’s not a typo I meant your dream) someday, you would think, ‘Maybe I should have given it a try too!’ and when that thought comes to your mind, the life that you have led so far becomes meaningless. I don’t want to lead a life like that.

I also don’t understand something! Why I am not allowed to live my life? It’s after all mine. I don’t want the society to give me a set of rules that I should follow, screw the rules! They want me to become a Business Analyst, they want me to work for a reputed organization, they don’t want me to be independent, I am not allowed to voice out my opinion when they take charge of my life, if I do they call me ill-mannered and arrogant. People are so narrow-minded to accept individuality! They always think life has to be based on a set of codes that was already designed for them. But I say I can make my own rules and you can go to hell. I will believe that I will marry a really handsome person after falling in love with him and it will happen, I believe that I will start a publishing house in future and my magazine would be successful, I believe that one day my dreams will come true and when I look back I will smile at the roads I had crossed and walked through. I will surely not regret, because I was being me and I followed my heart, I did not follow a pattern that was already available; I did not look for safety!

So let me be ME! Let me follow my dreams, let me follow my heart, because tomorrow if something goes wrong I will be contented because it was worth the shot!