Silver streaks

“BOO”...a tiny voice called shaking me up from my alarm- clock- beating, self induced coma. “Wake up didi, i have come to wake you up” It was so different from mom’s usual shrilly cries of “COLLEGE NAHI JAANA KYA?” and so unfamiliar that i woke up from the shock of it. My neighbour’s son was standing in my bedroom...trying to make me do the right thing. I don’t start cooing when i see kids but I have to admit that some of them are so charming in their innocent self righteousness that it totally makes me forget my cynical old-lady self and this one had a chubby little cherubic face and a smile that would cheer even the grumpiest person on the planet. I sat up while he nonchalantly chattered on without any self consciousness, without worrying what i think of him, without hesitating that he might be being intrusive(and the similar sort of crap which has killed my social skills). He saw a stuffed doll hanging in front of my wardrobe and laughed at me “HA HA you are so old...and you still play with dolls?” The doll was a going away/birthday present from my ex roomie and bff with a peculiar note attached to her Vista desktop (My name is chatni. Mind it). She had always promised to set me up with a cutie and the doll was her way of living up to that promise. The doll is the quintessential boyfriend..blue eyes, flawless skin and a boyish smile. He is always there for me, is not demanding, doesn’t get bored with me and doesn’t ever complain about anything –everything that i had on my “my boyfriend should be like” essay (“You never said that he was supposed to be breathing”, she had explained). I dint tell Shubham all that of course!(Shubham, is the kid who said BOO). Instead I mumbled something about “Oh! I don’t play with him..it just hangs there for show”. I made a mental note to explain this to Darcy(yeah he has a name!) later. If he was offended he dint show it. “Do you make stuffed toys?” “Eh..er..no” “My didi makes them.” “What didi” “Shreya didi. She used to go to office and she used to go to college. Pata hi nahi chalta tha ki college jaati hai ya office jaati hai, fir woh sirf office jaane lagi.” Which was a good thing cause it ended his confusion and i didn’t have to explain why i couldn’t make stuffed toys. “Aap ab bed se uthh jaao...”,he commanded turning away and disappearing downstairs.

Dark Cloud: Kids are gooey and annoying attention seekers

Silver Lining: They are also pure, guileless sweethearts who you can't keep away even if you are the Grinch's mother in law

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“Guess What?”, My friend said excitedly from the other side of the phone..barely able to suppress his laughter.

“What?”

“I am going to be so successful in life”

“Uh huh...” i said wondering whether he had met a psychic or a pundit with a parrot.

“I was in the practical lab and then i heard that a company was coming without any eligibility criteria. So i sat for the aptitude test topped it and totally conquered the PI. It was such a rush. Ha Ha. I had so much fun. I was talking back to him..giving superb answers. He asked me What guarantee do you have that you will join me and not your family business. I said “I don’t give you any guarantees sir! I might totally change my mind and so he had continued having the most honest interview of his life, speaking his mind out (stuff I used to think of saying while preparing for interviews but never actually mouthing it). It was totally hilarious the way he had given the rest of the interview. I want to give a total transcript, but he might sue me for “copyright infringement”.

“Give an example of a time when you were made to do something you didn’t like”

“four years’ of engineering”

I rolled with laughter, recalling my own interview last day and how different that had been.( I did have an honest moment there when he asked me what dbms i would use and i said SQL because it was the only DBMS i was familiar with). It was not the jokes that had me laughing so hard, it was the happiness, the thrill of not needing to prove one self, not needing to impress, of not needing to do a job that you would never imagine doing as a kid, not having to give weird circuitous answers to uncomfortable questions

“Why should we take you”

“If i knew that i wouldn’t be sitting here giving this interview i would be somewhere else taking it.”

Dark Cloud: The world is of the hypocrites, for the hypocrites, by the hypocrites.

Silver Lining: An honestly screwed interview makes you happier than one in which you have lied your way through. Our highest points are those when we let ourselves be our true selves.

* * * * * * *

I was walking to the station like a zombie. No expression on my face, my senses shut down. The world ain’t very pretty from the perspective of a single girl walking alone. She draws stares, rude comments, sniggers, taunts..stuff like that. A voice pierced through my defences...it was one of the kids who play in the field outside my colony ( Okay this is another kid moment here, but it’s true and also kid’s always take me by surprise). I walk in absolute terror when i pass through this playground, cause the kids nowadays are very precocious in a very unflattering way. I look at them as budding eve teasers, the ones who go to some local excuse for a school. Typical anti kids who learn cussing before they learn the alphabet. So it took me some time to register that one of them was calling out Didi, didi, like a digital alarm clock. Shoot...i braced myself for some rudeness, my fists clinched automatically. Time kya hua hai? I blinked. Was it a joke? Was it a trick? Was it a sincere question?

“Paanch bees”, i yelled back

“the kid, he was gangly. Wore a tattered shirt and by the looks of it spent all his time in the play ground. He nodded thoughtfully and i walked on partially relieved, when he shouted out

“thank you didi” and his friends joined in as well “thank you didi”

I smiled. I felt sheepish for dismissing them as riff raff while they were probably as adorable as Shubham. I smiled again and walked on. Not fearing people for once.

Dark cloud: the world is full of ugliness...people who revel in your misery

Silver lining: chill its not that bad...:-)