The Innocence

I miss the innocence that once was. All that innocence that once was.

The innocence which accompanied shifting to a new class, reading all the stories in the English and the Hindi text books on the very first day while wrapping them.

I miss the innocence that came with those exams, the dreams and the desires of performing well.

I miss those innocent happy shouts in front of the school guard screaming to my dad standing across the road with this scooter and the lunch boxes that I came first when I was damn sure I would come second.

I miss trying to explain the story of Harry Potter when my daadi asked what I kept reading in those big fat books. Or the concept of Horcruxes to my little brothers, as if they were real and I was elaborating on how over-smart Voldemort was.

I miss sitting all locked up in my hostel room on the second day of college, crying my heart out and telling my mum to get me admitted in a local college so I could stay at home. I miss my mom and best friend trying their best to talk me out of it. 

I miss crying over a stupid crush that I had blown up in my head, finding the bestest of friends who stayed with me as I had my so called one sided heart break.

I miss celebrating all the Valentine week days with my roommate, having dairy milks and choco lavas on the chocolate day.

I miss the innocence of those training days, coming back from Delhi hoping to bag any one of the companies in my kitty, any one would do. [How naive that was, seriously, the weight we gave to those placements.]

I miss that weird anxiousness and the anxiety that we felt when we reached that guest house in Noida, that sweet and tingly mixture of feelings you feel  when something new is about to begin.

That was the last I remember of it, the innocence, that is.

It is a blank line after that.

How weird is life, seriously.

I like to believe that you come here for a reason, to do some things only you are meant to do, learn lessons you need to.

But what drives it?

In school it was the next class.

I college the next plan you had with your friends, or your so called future plans.

In a job, maybe your promotion or the next pay-hike is supposed to drive you.

Then one fine day, you will marry. And start living live through others. Your kids’ school performance will become the central height in your life. And then eventually everyone will have too busy a life of their own. Your friends, your children, your siblings.

[Why don’t people get it that they cannot always and forever live through others, that they need to be complete in themselves and then find companionships that fit like lock and key on the face of this mother Earth. Or is it only me who is weird and thinks too much?]

And then you will leave the world.

But on some day while you are looking back, wouldn't you wonder what difference you made to the world?

Other than breathing through your life?

All those grades and those studies done amounted to what?

What did Margret Thatcher mean when she said that a woman’s life must matter? Beyond all the cleaning and cooking and taking care of the children, a woman’s life MUST matter.