Hey, folks! About time I continued writing……or rather continued my occasional writing here on WordPress. I’m finishing my gulab jamoon and rubbing the grease on my jeans as I write this. So, we all grow up and I did too. I’m a surly, pain-in-the-ass Indian teenager of fifteen. I’ll tell you why. (Not the teenager part but the words which came before it part)
Its Diwali now and they are bursting crackers like crazy. Its all bang bang boom bang out here. I’ m in my room, holed up like a rat on my couch and typing on my laptop(Yeah, I completed that jamoon, don’t worry). The thing is my dad is so very annoyed with me because I yanked his ear off the whole time about the environmental pollution that crackers cause when we went down the flight of stairs with a box of flowerpots. I actually went down with him for that very reason but ended up bursting a whole box of crackers myself. It was awesome.
The thing is, three years back, I would have not been very different from the bunch of scrawny kids down there, excited and jumping up and down and screaming diwali. I would have been elated to see the box of crackers hiding under the bed, brought weeks ago, ready for this day. I would take a peek everyday for the weeks leading up to diwali, just so childishly grinning when my dad would open the complex packaging for me just to touch and see those crackers. New dresses, crackers, sweets, gifts, the little Pooja would be overwhelmed.
I wonder what changed.
Wonder how I changed from the childish, carefree kid to the serious, brooding teenager. The metamorphosis shocks me now when I look back. Its like somebody reached out and killed the child inside me, only to be replaced by an advanced version I sometimes hate. Don’t take me wrong, I like the way I am now. I mean what is the point of setting off explosives at random?
Only there is no point…we do it for happiness. I regret that happiness is replaced by Ellie Goudling songs and living in my own bubble. Again, not really. I think Diwali is silly and not worth the time we spend over it.
Sometimes, I wonder whether I grew up too soon and it’s wrong to be glad. That I should be out there in the streets, wearing glittery dresses and celebrating instead of being scrunched up here. That being mature sometimes is not the way we behave, but the way we are. Feel like sometimes the way I am is not just immature but also very…teenagery. You know, preaching what I love(Even though what I love is good) and not really recognizing, leave alone appreciating, what others seem to like. When I was a child( I hate the tense) I had a open mind to everything. As long as it was fun, I didn’t care about anything else. Now, all this squirrel shit about whether others would approve eats my mind whenever I try to do anything that I love. I’m constantly in fear of being ridiculed, of being chided, off of my passion. I’m even more scared that I’ll give up my passion because of these fears, that I’ll somehow finally give in despite my confidence.
I used to show the little poems that I wrote to my parents proudly when I was little. Even though I knew deep down that it was as silly as sassyshit. But now I’m scared to show my 50,000 word long novel to them even though now I know deep down that it had shot to be big out somewhere. I’m scared that I’ll be told that it was silly, stupid and that I shouldn’t have wasted my time writing it when I could have been studying.
These fears are irrational and small when compared to my passion. Even though I deserved it, it did not. Writing is an art. An art I fell in love with. I shouldn’t be treating my soulmate this way, when there was no question about it, no doubts at all. I knew writing like I know me. I shouldn’t be ashamed of what I am and stop preaching the songs and movies that I love to every pair of eyes whose attention I’ve claimed.
It might be the hardest thing I’ve done yet but I should learn to accept and agree other people’s likes and dislikes and be proud of whatever I’m. Because that is where being mature really begins. Disliking only the crackers and not the persons who bursts it because they are just good at being who they are. I should be, too. Its a long road but I’ll get there.
Till then, Pooja’s just normal Pooja, a knowing teenager, trying to be adult, mourning her childhood.
By the way,
LET THE CELEBRATIONS BEGIN!!!
HAPPY DIWALI !
Poojitha 