I knew a little girl in a small city. I knew her since my childhood.. Nothing spectacular about her. Neither was she popular nor had any extraordinary qualities. Just that I knew her closely.. Or rather started to know better with time. I think now I know her almost completely, though there still are times when she surprises me by her hidden thoughts and reactions! She came a long way from the day I met her till date. I would address her as Mose in this story. I remember the times when Mose was a kid and used to stay in a joint family which included her grandparents, uncle's family, parents, her elder sister and younger brother. Hers was also a family who wished a baby boy whenever a new arrival was to come in the family. So after her sister's birth everyone was almost sure that the next would be a boy, specially after confirming through sonography. Medical results aren't always correct!
Mose's arrival was uncalled for and made everyone in family unhappy except for her mom ofcourse and her uncle. Her family's financial status was also very average and life was like any other lower middle class family during that time. I am talking about 80's here. Mose is now in mid twenties.. same as my age. She doesn't remember much about her childhood days. Maybe because she did not have any sweet memories to cherish. She was always the unnoticed and she made it more by creating a shell around her. Mose was not unhappy about herself nor was she too excited about life.
Mose's family stayed in a house situated in a small lane and her grandfather had a small shop of trunks at 1 km from house. Mose along with her brother used to go till the shop to get her ears cleaned by her grandfather, however funny it may sound though. Her brother was also a quiet boy but was pampered a lot and enjoyed the benefits of being the first boy-child of the house, specially after two elder sisters. They did not have neighbors nor did they feel the need to have any as the family itself was big enough. Every week the 3 children used to get 1 Rs from their grandfather as their pocket money and that 1 Rs mattered so much. Bringing the maximum variety of sweets and toffees from that 1 Rs was the sole purpose of each child. All children used to go on roads in groups to search for matchstick covers. There was a silly competition to collect the maximum variety. Those kiddish childish games! I was also one of them when it came to playing hide and seek with all her cousins. Mose was so scared of that game that she always prefered staying in background. She saw that all children were too enthusiastic to please her elder sister. During summers her aunt's used to come over for a month or so and then was the time when that house had around 15 children. Mose's sister gathered all the praise and attention. She was no doubt smarter too. She spoke a lot and in some ways was more keen to seek attention. Gradually Mose and her brother grew to be quiet and preferred taking backseat in most of the matters. While her sister continued becoming popular amongst relatives and teachers, Mose built her own world of dreams. She was known to be the quiet, simple and less smart in the family. She had to go with her sister where ever she was asked to. She started having inferiority complex.
Mose and her siblings went to a convent school. Her mother, despite all objections, made sure that both her daughters got a good education. She is a very strong woman. Mose's father had always been a quiet man going with the opinion of other family elders in general. Mose's uncle was a big support for her mom during those days. Her father always wished well though but was never a rebel. He was a businessman with a small shop a few km away. He also used to help his father in his trunks shops. Mose's uncle got good education and became an engineer while her father sacrificed his further education for his younger brother. Even in school, Mose was known more due to her sister's popularity than her own name. She was happy about her sister's success and always prayed to God for her success. Secretly she wanted to be like her. She started dreaming that one day she would be noticed and become popular. She never used to speak her thoughts with the fear of being ridiculed. Only thing she knew is her sister was praised by everyone and she was perfect. But Mose never thought herself to be capable enough to be like her. She used to cry in front of me at times. She had limited number of friends while her sister had a huge and varied fan following. Mose had a very bad handwriting while her sister was known for her neatness and good handwriting. People used to call her sister an all-rounder while she hardly had any qualities to be praise about.
I used to tell Mose that she is no less and can do well iff she tries. It was necessary to not let Mose lose all her self confidence. I used to feel bad about her helpless plight. But I was too weak to bring any change. Mose was very sincere and simple. She was confident about her goodness and will to help others. The only thing she needed was someone who would be confident of her. She wanted people to find her interesting and praise her too. But she never worked towards it. I feel that many instances weren't against her but she became too negative over a period of time and started to seclude herself from people. She used to wonder a lot and think about instances when people would respect her. There were times she thought that people are soo foolish not to understand that her sister manipulates lots of things just to get the praises. She started holding her sister responsible for so many good things which did not come to her. She used to form exaggerated thoughts of everything in her mind. She had a very close relationship with God she would say.. She talked to God and got answers for all her doubts, well most of the times. She silently started analyzing people.
She was growing, unaware of what is in store for her in next few years. The last 2 years in school were good for her as she once came in the first 5 ranks in her class in one of the unit tests. That small spark was enough to build her confidence. That small success meant so much to her. Teachers praising her, family feeling proud of her, friends suddenly wanting to be around her! Seriously, small changes lead to big ones! There was no looking back after that. She was so happy with herself. And eventually that's what matters, does it not? She improved her handwriting, her way of keeping things organized, studied with more sincerity and was ready to face the world outside the school. Her sister was academically 1 year ahead of her and in 10th she came in merit rankers of Maharashtra board. Till this time everyone had even bigger hopes from Mose. She had proved herself in studies and was supposed to be more sincere as she was only inclined in studies. Mose gave her best shot in her SSC board exams and the result day was so very important for her. Everyone had almost assumed that she would be in merit. She started getting nightmares fearing what would happen if she missed her merits. She suddenly became scared of expectations. She realized how difficult it might be for her sister to keep up to everyone's expectations all the time. But then her sister was a natural. When the day arrived she went with her uncle to the university to try and get the result out a little beforehand. This was common by asking the peon or other incharges as they have the list one day prior to when it comes in newspapers. After struggling for what I remember 4 hours they finally got to know the aggregate %. It was 82.80. Mose's uncle was very happy and was beaming with pride while her heart sunk thinking that the number was too less for her to be in merit. Her sister had got 4% more and she was the last merit. Though this year the papers were tougher and chances were that the cutoff percentage would be lower than last year. She cried bitterly and was not ready to face the family. So her uncle and she decided not to disclose the marks till the next day. When the actual results were out she realized that she fell short by 4 marks to come in merit. Her disappointment knew no bounds. She wanted to run away from the embarrassment and of letting her parents down. But later when she went to her school to collect the mark sheet, she realized that even the top merit student from her school did not score as much as she did in Maths. That was a major relief for her. She felt proud of this fact. And when she compared her marks with her fellow students, she had scored above average than most others. She had now taken the result positively and was happy and determined to work harder for her HSC.
Now was the actual beginning she thought.. She was put in the same college as her sister's and that was also supposed to be the best junior college meant for above average students. Those two years of junior college were a different experience in a number of ways. The childhood days were gone. She for the first time was going to really interact with the male species apart from her father, brother and other cousins. It indeed was a new experience for her! It was like discovering a new world. Not that she talked to a lot of them during those two years. But those days were the openings to her future of the world out of home. The real world! Getting her first scooter, a maroon colored Sunny was such a high! Making friends with girls and guys. Doing practicals in close vicinity of so many guys. Going for movies and experiencing the fun of bunking lectures, freaking out at famous joints, gossiping about guys, going to tuitions for the 12th std courses, flirting with guys (this wasn't too much with her) and being a part of teasing other friends. She now met girls who were much more beautiful and smarter than herself. She got to know what it is to be jealous with your own friends just to be in limelight or impress guys. But she was too busy learning facts to build any inferiority complex then. This was a different world as there were no school uniforms any longer, no bindings of timings and no rules to abide by. It is an intoxicating experience to get the feel that you are now a part of the bigger world and your life is as important as the other elders you have been looking up to. Mose was experiencing the same. She could relate to all the romantic and women oriented movies she saw. She made some male acquaintances. I would not say that they were her friends as she was shy then and also was aware that her family would not allow her association with guys much. Even the shy most girl starts to build her dreams. Mose had started to build hers. That was all part of growing up from a child to a young girl. The transition was not very remarkable from outside. Only she knew the turbulence she went through each day. It was a world where one needs to be cautious. The heart is not in your control. You seek out for limelight. She wasn't confident yet of her personality and looks but she knew that she had stepped the world where things were going to be a challenge with each passing day. She had tasted the fruit of the outside world and was keen to know more about people around. She wanted to explore the world independently. She also knew that this would not be possible until she goes out of her city and stays in hostel. She made up her mind to score good marks and make sure that she does her engineering from a college far from her home.
She promised herself to score a target she kept for herself. She put a condition in front of her parents that if she scored a 95+% in her PCM they should allow her to go in the college of her choice. Those were the times when the engineering admissions in Maharashtra board were based on the PCM marks. PMT had just started and Mose gave that too on her father's insistence. Though she knew she doesn't belong to the biology stream. When the results were out she wasn't surprised to see a score of 96% in her PCM and her heart knew exactly that the turning point in her life has started. Everyone in the family was happy and proud of her. That was the first time she felt the real high of being someone worthy. She filled the centralized engineering form with her father and made sure to change the college codes without him knowing about it. The family had agreed for her to go outside Nagpur but they were reluctant to let her go as far as Pune or Mumbai. Relatives played their part to increase the dilemma further. So Mose decided to change the college codes without her parents' knowledge. Disappointingly, most of the good colleges like VJTI, MIT etc did not provide a girls hostel. So she carefully chose from the few which did and placed them in the top three list and the rest followed in order of the decreasing distance from her hometown. They all waited for the results. Fingers crossed! And then came the results. She was ready for it and she was happy about it. She was about to step in the city of dreams, hopes, adventure, glamor.. Mumbai!!
To be continued..
