Something Gotto Give

I m a rock.

I m hardcore.

I m Cristina.

I never wanted to leave Delhi. It was my birth place, my hometown. I was comfortable and now when I think about it, I often wonder what life would have been there. Shifting was like uprooting me from one place I belonged. Taking away everything - friends, school, people I knew, plans I had. I had never been alone in my life, now I knew what it felt like. The shell I had, closed on everyone and I just couldn’t adjust anywhere. I was bloody comfortable to notice how bounded I was and when the realization struck, I was in a mess. I landed in a school I hated, people I knew nothing about and place I couldn’t fit in. This is still my status. Fours years after bad schooling, I m still the same blocked person I was when I came here with just one minor change, its college this time.

My first day at school was horrifying. I was late, missed prayer, everyone was so weird and I was a stranger. And to top it all, my funny voice. People teased me back home of the peculiar sound that comes out of my esophagus when I speak. I hated it so much when I was the centre of attention when I spoke, laughed or sang. It made me all the more self conscious. (Now I just snap at anyone who dares to make fun of it, no matter who it is.) So, I didn’t make new friends, didn’t even talk to anyone much and it was atrocious enduring it all alone. The worst time was lunch. I just didn’t know what to do, where to go. But I guess people were nice enough to take me out and sit with me. I was still lonely and an outsider. I had never felt so abandoned. Next morning, I had to drag myself off the bed and I was nearly in tears till the time I got ready. How much I wished I was better dead but that phase passed, later I just wished for some disease. The nastiest part was I couldn’t discuss it with anyone. I was too stubborn to admit how troubled I was.

Things got better, I made friends eventually and school sucked a little less. Then came a time, when I was enjoying, which had never occurred to me as a possibility because I’d never thought of my life here less than miserable. I don’t regret relocating to Gurgaon. How can I when I got much more than I left behind? Life is good here.

School was done with, next stop was college. I had big hopes from my college life. You know you see in movies how high school is awful for some and college is like the dream come true? Yeah, mine was not the case. I really don’t like my college. I try to believe ‘I belong here’ but I m sinking. I don’t know what I hate about my college particularly but it doesn’t feel right; doesn’t feel me. I m compelling myself to give it another shot everyday just like school, trying to like it just like school, and wishing for a disease all the same. What goes around comes around; life goes full circles.

Memories fade, it’s a human thing. I can’t recall most of my old life. It just left me when I stopped thinking about it. That’s how you move on - when you stop caring about histories, present takes over and past is better off. I wish I could put yesterday behind and start over.

I m not a rock, I m not hardcore and I wish I was Cristina.