" your shirtis torn again!!!!!!" my mum would exclaim! the pre teen years of my life were spent listening to this exclamation every second day.But it was not my fault! you tell me, if you were pushed or shoved wont you retaliate? you would right?? well i used to do just the same!! if my shirt got torn, i made sure the guilty party did not have a stitch left intact either. i was one of the boys, a sports freak would play every sport that could be played, my favourite being soccer! the mere energy level of the game used to give me an adrenaline rush and make my mum wonder if i had testosterone developing inside me instead of oestrogen. how i wish her fears were true, but alas oestrogen took over and suddenly soccer became a totally different ball game for me as well as for the boys playing with me!! since i had bigger balls on my side, i had to withdraw! and with good bye soccer ended the pre teen phase of my life. with torn shirts, bruises and swollen eyes!
Born to a fairly affluent family, with my dad being an investment banker and mum being a doctor, i had all the amenities required for a blossoming adolocent to look good.But in my case it was an out n out tragedy!!i was so sure that when i was being made god must have gone for a walk and one of his assistants trying to be a smart ass must have tried a hand at me and so the end result was such a disaster despite my parents being so good looking i posed a pathetic picture.my arms were too thin, legs too long,nose too prominent, teeth coming out and to top that the perils of 'chadhti jawani' my hormones were going beserk and i was dying to be kissed. But between me and my first kiss came my Dentist! no no please dont think that he tried to kiss me... though at that point of time i think even that would have sufficed. it was those wretched braces that kept me away from men's embraces,then came KARAN, the first love of my life, tall fair with a dimpled smile. when he was around i used to behave like a freakin puppy! and surprise surprise... he even took notice of me, man i was on cloud nine... a guy was paying me attention wow! but like every love story mine ended with a tragedy too, he wanted my best friend and i mis read his intentions!!!I was heart broken, devastated like kajol in kuch kuch hota hai... the movie had released around the same time as this mishap in my life and i watched it 10 times....finally coming to terms with the fact that love is not for ugly ducklings like me. sigh!!!
All this while my parents had been really supportive, despite me having the usual generation gap issues with them. My dad used to say that i was the most beautiful girl he s ever laid his eyes on... and i used to tell him that he says it just to make me happy... but secretly it did make me feel nice. Slowly i had started getting more comfortable in my skin, not really great at acads but my records in extra curricular activities was par excellance from bein the school sports captain to winning laurels in debates and dance competitions. you name it and i was there. I was still one of the boys, with the only difference being i could no longer do a chest thump with them, if they had a chance i m sure they would ve qued up for it, i always had loads of aquaintances but very few friends..... and they are with me even today,
Come college and my entire life took a paradigm shift, suddenly men were falling for me left right and center, and to say that i did not enjoy the attention would be the biggest lie of the centuary I WAS LOVING EVERY FREAKIN BIT OF IT!! and guess the sudden attention led me to get into a number of mindless relationships, some just for the sex, some just for attention and some just to be a part of the crowd, it was the 'IN' thing to be seeing someone and so we all followed the trend, not realising that in the process we were internally damaging ourselves. i dont remember the names of half the men i dated in college, and now when i look back i dont feel very proud of myself. The second time i fell in love i was cheated on... and so for a long time i was totally off men, but i still flirted. now thats my forte, i cant stop myself from flirting for me itsmore like getting into a mans psyche reading it and moulding it as per me,thats a reason why i took up psychology as a subject to major in. But when it came to choosing a career being a clinical psychologist seemed too boring, i wanted to do something taht was more fun more interesting more of a peoples job and so bartending....i always enjoyed watching the bartenders work at a pub or a theque, especially the way they juggled the drinks and enjoyed seeing getting sloshed around them, and another aspect of the profession that intrigued me was that it had fewer women than men... and so bartending it was for me.
To say that my parents were aghast is an understatement.. but once they saw how determined i was they relented,and anyways with them by now living in the states facing the rest of the society was no longer and issue for them so they were a bit easy on me.With my job came all the independence i dreamt of own house, an suv finally ( ahem! a safari, who s instalments i am still paying!)and a life of my own. but my knight in shining armour was still no where in sight... not that i didnt meet men, i met plenty of them, and all of them wanted to have coffee at my place! saale akeli ladki dekhi nahi ki cofee aa gayee dimaag mai!! but i was not interested in casual relationships anymore and more importantly didnt want to fall for the wrong guy.
All this was me one yr back.......as i write it now i am no longer living alone in my apartment, i am sharing it with tanmay,Tnmayl is someone i met a year back on my trip to ladakh, i would not say that we hit it off instantly, infact he was there with a girl, but as we got to know each other more we realised we were two very different people who totally complimented each other. He is a banker(jst like my dad, girls have this funy quirk of falling for men who are like their fathers, and i am no exception to this rule) an avid reader (and i always ask him HOW????) more stable and sorted in the head but at the same time shares my passion for adventure and dance, wow!dosent he fit my description of my ideal man? my folks adore him, and he thinks i am the best thing that could have happened to him .sometimes i think what if my parents would not have accepted him??? I still would ve stuck on to him... because i know for sure i am right and my parents would have had to come around!
So thats me mihika for you... a little less tomboyish a little more feminine but the same freak at heart. My dad still says i am the most beautiful woman he ever laid his eyes on and you know what now i believe him.
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