Daddy's Little Girl

Most people start with ashes and as life turns old, things turn gold. They beckon all the beauty and serene, rise and shine. Leave the old lives behind. And then, just never look back. So heroic their progress seems. So apt, so desirable and so deserving. I envy them. I belong to those ditched cast of people whose past never leaves them alone. Not because of it was dark and dreary, but because it was beautiful. It was flawless. Had I made and drawn my life myself, I still wont have changed a thing. And then one day at a time, it all changed.

I started with everything in my fists, just I never knew how to hold it right. And then I lost it all.

I have this lovely memory of going swimming with my Dad for the first time. I was very little, tiny really. And I had seen a swimming pool before, just never been allowed to get inside one. My mother was there, my little brother. I didn’t have a swimming costume so my dad just made me wear those little boy shorts and told me I’m good to go. Now, I could’ve been a little girl but I had seen TV and had some idea how women dressed. And I was so embarrassed. So the tiny me, shyly came out of the changing room, hiding behind Papa and covering my chest with my hands. It was so hilarious (to everyone else there) that my mom almost slipped in the pool laughing it out. And I had no idea why everyone was laughing. I thought they’re laughing because Papa has such hairy legs. But when I realized they were laughing at me, I bolted right past Mom, covered myself in a towel and never spoke to anyone the whole day. Till in the evening they bought me a new red swim suit and a swimming cap. But they laughed still.

It was so special. When I was little I used to sleep on my Papa’s chest. When I was little I remember how Papa once told me that he wished he had another girl like me and not my little brother. I remember my grand ma telling me that when Mom was pregnant they had only thought of a name for a girl, not a boy at all. I remember how he used to gather all the kids in the family and play games with them. I remember being jealous when Papa paid too much attention to the other grown up kids of the family. I had always wanted to be like my Dad. I used to applaud anything he liked and rejected anything he didn’t. No plain milk for Dad, no plain milk for me. White shirts to bed for Papa, white shirts to bed for me. Since I never had White shirts, I used to just wear Dad’s. It made me feel even more special to wear his clothes. It made me feel how I was his favorite in the world. I used to get my hair cut like his. I even tried to shave my face once, just to be like Papa. I would’ve done anything for him. Pity, I’m the person who took everything away.

We were so happy, my mom and dad were the best parents in the world. They were strict about somethings, for example sleepovers. But for everything else, they were amazing. We had a cozy little place, great dinner conversations, so much to tell each other, we were happy to just be around each other. And then it all went wrong.

My broken relationship broke down everything. Sadly, irreparably. The problem is he loved me too much. So do I, and that’s why it hurts. I cant forgive myself. Papa has a heart of a little girl, and I wish I could take it all away for him. Get him a better world. Woudnt have made so many mistakes. He still wanders in those troubles and I feel helpless when I can’t get him back to be in the present tense. I feel responsible and guilty. He just never was the same man again. And I miss him. I miss him terribly. And I cant see you suffering like that Dad. I wish I could go back to being the same stupid midget I was when I hid behind you for everything, and I swear to god, Dad, this time around I’ll listen to each word that you say.

Just come back to me. Please. Just the way we were. Lets all go back to dining room. Just once more. Come back to yourself. Come back to me. I miss you around me.

Accepting Differences

My present college, my earlier university and almost all b-schools in the country pride themselves on their student diversity. Infact, as an HR major I’ve read courses in Diversity Management, several hundred papers written about it, that I researched for own my paper. What rings true is even after so many of “I’m different” and “I don’t belong here”, I rarely meet someone I can hardly understand. All diversity means to people is races, ethnicity and languages. But that’s not all, there are economic classes, skin tone bias, accent bias, marital status bias, different schools of thoughts, acceptance of varied value systems, to name a few. And, are any of us skilled to handle that? Anyone ever taught us that? In our well thought approach of talking about everything in a politically correct manner, and our b-school’s proactive approach of giving us a brief on it, before we really face it, the question is we don’t yet recognize the real diversity and the fact that many of us lead our lives in our wonderful confiscated little cocoons, not realizing how royally we screw up in real lives.

Let’s start with a few. The distinction of people belonging to the smokers category. Worse yet, if you’re a girl. The sect cliché for the female smoker group goes: Females who smoke sleep around. Truly, people who smoke all know the health hazards of it already and still choose to do it, there is nothing else common between them. Infact, Smokers are less of a cult than MBAs. MBA league, so called diverse background are relatively a homogenous mix, as compared to smokers. Most smokers have nothing in common: timings, frequency, or even brand, let alone their sexual preferences. Girls who’ve atleast lived in the diverse arrangement once, and smoked would testify. They’re looked down upon, are judged about our relationship status, attitude towards the opposite sex (sometimes even same sex, really). Its more amusing to me than anything else.

Should I start writing about Marital Status? Broken marriages are scary, to anyone, and I don’t deny that. But most people are not equipped enough emotionally to handle it. They either stop talking to divorced people, or spread rumours about their sexual activities, or the assumed past sexual activities, without basis ofcourse. The funny part is, this is not even happening to them, they don’t have to face it. They do not have to face the agony of a past scar so deep that it almost always affects their present lives everyday, they don’t have to face social judgments, they don’t have to face awkwardness of not letting yourself be, the loud smirks your brain and your heart makes inside your head everytime someone mentions the M word. And still, even as an outsider they cant handle their world. And by experience, what have we learned, people who cant do it, stand out and curse it. And again, its more amusing to me than hurtful now.

How many of us are going to be man enough or more aptly woman enough to accept the skin tone bias? Ofcourse, it exists. Not just during love selection, also during roommate selection, while making work group, chum selections, class representative election, choosing Ms. Fresher. Apparently, logic and intelligence only come in handy when you have a skin tone fairer than the rest to go with it.

Language Barrier? Not the usual cross cultural slides we learn in OB. But the true language barrier we face in our country. Most of us MBA’s do not have to face it. Come on! We come through selection tests which marks us on an English scale of a far-fetched high standard, are interviewed and GD-ed and really what do you think are those communication marks for? English. Most of us, taking the worse case, know people who have bad grammar, and that’s all, this is our definition of a not-so-good education. Do either of us have an outlook open enough to know that someone in the present India, who does not speak a word of English is just as smart, or even more? Unfortunate as it may be, I even know people in my own class who think less of others cause they didn’t know who Dylan is.

This is still touching just the brim. There are spending power assumptions, believers are frowned upon more than the non-believers, introverts are taken as stuck up, extrovert females are tagged flirtatious, extrovert boys become Mr. Fresher’s and many more. Ironically, no one judges people with two boyfriends, or un-countable girlfriends, no one thinks less about people who abuse teachers who make you work, noone is held accountable for making stories about others, or about conniving morons who get back at you by asking implausible questions at the end of your presentation.

I’m just let down I guess. I thought elite education gives a certain sophistication of thoughts, and sensitivity in perspective. But maybe not. People are people, no matter what, and no matter where. Even still, does anybody else think it’s so uncanny that as individuals we hate them and as a plural entity we are them. We the people, suck.