The Indian Girl

Hello, who so ever is reading this. I am a girl, a quiet common girl from a quiet common part of a quiet common town in India. For the sake of privacy, I will not be disclosing my name, but for the sake of convenience let us just call me Pinkie. Now you would wonder how come a common girl, a nobody, is writing an autobiography. To that I answer: It is not only the rich and the famous who have the right to write about their lives. Common people experience just as much and more in their lives. It is the everyday occurences, the small things that happen to us that basically define who we are, and what path we take in life. As for the second part, I am not a nobody. I am an independent, modern girl who has her own identity. I might be a face in the crowd for now, but atleast that face is my own. But there will be time enough to argue on my rights later. For now, let me take you through my life and decide for yourself.

I have been born and raised in the same town that I live in, in a house which already had two girls. In some parts of this country, I'd have been either killed before being born, or after it. Fortunately enough for me, my parents were not the kind that thought a girl a curse. I guess sometimes they did wish they had a son, but then again, they were a part of a society that believes a girl is someone else's wealth. I don't blame them even if they did wish so, for they brought us up the way they would've brought up sons. I was always their favourite of the three. Comes with being the youngest of the lot you see. I could play mischief and still get away without being punished while my elder sisters would be disciplined for much less. Life was good during those days, fun and play and not much trouble. But life, as you know, has a very queer way of giving surprises. We got one when we least expected it. My father was employed in Allahabad bank, and was posted in Moradabad. He used to come down every Friday, spend the weekend with us and report back to his office on Monday morning. As my father was packing his bags, I came up to him and asked him: "Is it necessary for you to go papa?"
He just smiled and kissed the top of my head, picked up his briefcase and left. There was nothing new there. He'd gone hundred of times in the same manner. Only this time there was a catch. He never came back. Atleast not the smiling father that I remembered, the one who used to take pictures of us. Heart attack, we were told. Common enough, murmured the people who came to pay us their condolences. He was a nice man, they said. Life goes on, they patted our heads and said. I couldn't understand a word of it. I was six and a half, and already fatherless.

A lot of people lose their fathers. Some never even see them. And then there are those very few who have their fathers, but never get to know them. I atleast was fortunate enough to have known my father, to have played with him and have him pick me up to place me on his shoulders. But all that was in the past. My childhood had ended before it even started. I had to grow up and mature faster than was natural. We could not sulk, for the harsh reality of the moment was that my father was gone, and my mother was left with the responsibility of raising three girls on her own. No house, no property, for we lived in a rented flat. No support forthcoming from the family. She could have taken the easier option. She could have remarried, for she was not that old. She could even have fed us all poisoned food to end the misery. But she chose to do things her own way. She got the job in place of my father, took a loan, bought a plot and built a house. It took a lot of effort and perseverance from her end, but finally she did it.

Things turned towards a smoother curve after those torrid seven years after my father's passing. We had our own house, my eldest sister had married and settled down. My elder sister had finished her studies and was working. As for me, I enrolled in engineering. Drawing and sketching always used to fascinate me, so I went for civil engineering. I made a few friends, and was generally having a good time of it. But there still was something missing in my life. I'd seen struggle first hand, I had been through pain. The easy life, the kind which does not deviate or inconvenience appealed to me, but I'd been through too much to have been satisfied with it. I found an outlet in dramatics. Streetplay were my forte, because I associated with it. I met a lot of people who thought the same as I did, who were dissatisfied with the kind of society that we were, and wanted to make a difference. I don't know whether it all made a lot of difference to the society, but we did our bit, and it made a difference to me. I'd found someone who could fill the empty space in my life, who could set things right with just a smile and a quick joke and set my heart racing. He had his flaws, and he had his strengths. I fell for him headlong, and he fell for me. One thing led to another, and now, here I am, 26 years old, wife of an officer in the Indian army, expecting our first child, thinking back on my life and how it is no less exciting or interesting than a movie stars. There are a lot of things I have skipped, a lot I haven't told you, but I guess that would have to wait for another time. Now you decide, for yourself, was I right or wrong?