Every one has one dream in life ... I had a dream too , ive seen it come true too... but when it has come true , does it hold the same beauty that my dream held?
Ive dreamt of Bangalore , ever since I can ever remember, did the dream begin when I was taken from Bangalore to Gujrath ? Did the dream begin when I was old enough to look for my bearings , my roots .. i know not and maybe will never too .... I just know that for ever i have pined for my birth place , the house (MY HOUSE) in Bangalore , relatives and family.
For us , moving from one house to another , one city to another , one state to another never held any of the major shocks that most movies show , no huge emotional scenes , no running back and and holding the pillar of the house and weeping .... just an organised way of packing everything and waking up one morning taking the bags and leaving the house for ever , never to return. I never felt any attachement , just a strange feeling in the new place for the first few weeks ... but then , my mind would get adjusted to the new place. All the while my heart and my mind nursed this dream ... the dream of a sunset at the footsteps of MY house , with a garden that my home has , relatives in the home . That was the ultimate happiness for me in my uncomplicated childhood mind.
When at the age of 20 I have finally realised the dream of settling in the city of my birth ( what is this fascination with the birthplace ....even Rama and Krsna seemed to nurse it , well more about this sometime else , I cant afford to digress now) , I suddenly found out that simplicity is the right of only the innocent and young , it becomes a scarce commodity as the person gathers knowledge ( Did Eve not learn this the hard way?). My garden no longer existed , a cement layer lay over the tombs of my plants giving way to the cars that need to be parked there , the sun can no longer be seen as clearly now , the buildings are far too high for that , that warm sunlight no longer peeps in to wake me up in the morning ( well, the neighbours' 2wheelers and hi-fi songs definetly do) the relatives dont seem so enticing anymore .... How had i longed for occasions and functions where all relatives met and chatted and gossiped and laughed ! Hadnt I seen others doing so when a friend's invite took me to their ceremonies? Hadnt my young heart pined for the laughter then ? Hadnt my young mind envisoned my granparents and relatives squatting on the carpetted floor teasing the eligibles ( girls of marriageable ages) and admonishing the children for their loud games and racous shouts? Hadnt I yearned for the security the scene provided? Now when I get invited to any such occasions , I hardly step out of my home , I try and find excuses for not attending them ... what do I tell them? That I hardly know them? or that I have never seen them in my life , and even they are getting introduced to me as "XXX's grand daughter" or "XYZ's sister-in-law's brother's daughter" or "Ohhh .. Do you remember that family that used to live in XXX then in YYY then in ZZZ and so on so forth places ? This is her daughter" and they gush as though they've known me for ages ? What do I answer when someone asks me "My My how much youve grown in the past 20 years!!" Do I tell them that it is the normal process of life and if he looks at himself in the mirror he will see an old man with a receding hairline and a paunch staring back at him ... wats the surprise in a girl growing up to be a woman? How do I ensure my presence in the conversation of people of my ages when they have nothing to say but about their collegeprofessors (miraculously , my cousins attend colleges in groups .. it is never a single kid in one college ...) and their science subjects , poor commerce failed to attract anyone except the poor below average student (namely me) , their childish talk puts me off Im already through that phase when a joke on your lecturer is the coolest thing to crack and a wink by the opposite sex is the hottest thing to happen , Im too fat to play with the younger ones , too young to sit with the oldies .... and yes of course , the men , who would never want a woman involving in their realm of stocks and shares and politics etc where as I swear i can out talk any man on the subjects of stock exchanges and India Inc. What happened to my dream? When and where did I go wrong? Or is it the world thats wrong ... now well thats another string to musingssssssss
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