Chapter 1: Rebirth
It had come as a shock to both the girls when their father had decided to get them admitted to a college in Delhi. Payal had accepted it with more calmness than compared to Khushi. Khushi on the other hand had been jumping with joy. It was not that she disliked the small town where they lived but it was more of a perpetual bliss and monotony that town imbibed in them which made her life dull. She loved her life and basked in peer pressure, if such a thing did exist in their town. Everyone seem to know everyone and by the time she had finished her schooling, she knew that if she really wanted to experience life, then her town was definitely was not that place. Her paternal aunt who lived in Delhi had wholeheartedly invited the girls to stay with him and her father had agreed. The dream of her living in the big city, making new friends and being adventurous in life had finally materialized. Her sister had however seemed more withdrawn.
Payal, the shy little girl who was always referred to as Khushi's older sister. She wasn't unhappy being called so as far as people left her alone. Being grown-up in the shadow of her sister, she bleakly wondered what would happen to her if she was directly exposed to the Sun.
"Find yourself an umbrella then!" Khushi had trilled. She had turned pink at her sister's insinuation. She knew it wouldn't be that way. She was a simple girl with simple tastes with her nose mostly buried in books. Even in the new college, she would continue her lifestyle the way it was now and no one would bother her. She wasn't looking for anything from the new start that she and her sister were getting after the death of their mother. She wanted to finish college and get a new job. Her plans ended there. Her sister Khushi was different in that aspect.
Khushi never really had one, single, solitary dream. Her dreams and whims changed with changing time but never really stopped. There were times when Payal would see the far way look in her sister's eyes. She would know that look because she herself had it for a while. Introspecting Khushi was something she had come to see more and more as they grew up and it had the little sibling always on a confused mode. She would have danced all night at a party, sneaked to their room by climbing up a tree but on the same night she would find her sister writing away in her diary. This had Payal completely confused and when she confronted Khushi about it, she always got a wooly but a convincing answer. It drove her nuts. After couple of months, Payal gave up trying to figure out what her sister wrote and just left it at that.
Their father had insisted they live with their aging aunt, his sister, so that she would have some company and advocacy for her nieces. Payal had made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat when their father told them about their living arrangements. She had observed her aunt and her sister on various occasions and she could see the underlying tension between two women. Their aunt had affection for the girls, of course, but her blatant brashness towards things she deemed unimportant would always rub Khushi off in a wrong way. And unfortunately for everyone, Khushi wasn't someone who kept quiet. She wondered if it was a wise idea to put two people who were combustive with very little catalyst and highly explosive, under same roof. Like always, she didn't say anything in contrary to her father's words.
Before the decision of moving to the city was sunk in, they were already finishing all the formalities of getting admitted to new college and were coming home with handful of paperwork and brochures.
Once back in their town, the sisters had read back to back of every available paper that was handed out to them at their college. While vast library and music room had captured Payal's attention, the vast landscape and exclusive blog for students had captured Khushi's. She idly mused about the possibilities of retaining her individualistic attitude that she carried in their town. In small towns, anything being tiny bit different from the norm generally was termed individualistic. But in a city like Delhi, even she knew that she had to offer a lot more to be noticed, to be respected and to be accepted.
Initially she was surprised to see that their college website offered every student to have a blog on the site with an anonymous username. Though they logged in with their actual names and passwords, it was really clever of the college to allow students an opportunity to be anonymous from next step onwards. It was then she had an idea. Also it was time to let go of all the turmoil that she had been feeling for quite some time because of the movement to a new place.
She logged into the site following instructions and mulled over for a while about her penname. She looked out of the window staring at the leftovers of summer. They were now on cusp of changing seasons. Summer evenings were peppered with cool drizzles bringing in a harmony of ending of summer and onset of monsoon. And during this cusp, most colleges and school reopened. She wanted her pseudonym to be based on truth and not be something derived out of her fantasy or influenced by external factors. She smiled knowingly and typed out her penname.
smalltown_girl.
"That should be sufficient for my works." She thought idly. She decided to keep her page plain and simple. There was nothing plain and simple about her. She wore her individuality on her sleeve and people took notice of that wherever she went. But on her blog, she decided to forgo all the plumage that she had adapted to while she was growing up and become absolutely threadbare. She felt exhilarated at the freedom of that.
After thinking for a few moments, she wrote her first post on that site.
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He made himself a cup of coffee before hitting the books. He was Arnav, only son of a single mother brought up in city. He was a nerd at heart who ignored his good looks and disregarded the interest showed by the opposite sex. While many brushed it aside assuming that a nerd never really understood the advancement from girls, a few thought that he was simply being snooty. Though his arrogance came from his intelligence, he lacked the conceitedness that one generally associated with pretty boys. He was approached by many of his college goers to be a part of some or the other athletic team. He ignored them with reasons one inane than the next. He however kept himself fit for the respect that he showed his body. His mother however made blunt comments as to how her only son was boring to be buried himself in books when he should be out making loud noises in dating scene. He would simply roll his eyes to his mother and kiss her cheek in an effort to placate her. It wasn't as though she didn't understand him. It was that the way he looked at things differed greatly from the way his mother did or anyone else for that matter. The cocoon he had built around him was strengthened as the years passed and now it had become unbreakable.
Unless someone nuked it through.
He logged into school site to check out if there was anything good going on. He was lucky to be in a college where facilities were one of the best that was available for students. His inner poet had been unleashed when saw an opportunity to write down semi asinine angst thoughts as he would call them. He saw that there were few new members given the fact it was beginning of a new semester and there would be few new students. He clicked on a couple of them and found them to be very self-absorbing.
"Blogs are supposed to be that you moron." He heard his brain mock him. He clicked a couple of more links and didn't find them interesting enough to hold his attention for more than few seconds. He stumbled up on a very plain user name: smalltown_girl.
There was nothing special about it yet it made him open the page. By the name, it was obvious that the writer was a girl. He was surprised to find the page devoid of anything other than the default offered plain page. She had not disturbed the normalcy and had not even made an attempt to personalize that page. It intrigued him and allured him. It looked as if she was posting for the first time and there was only one entry. He clicked on the link to read her entry which was untitled.
Leaving my place of birth
to be in city of dreams.
Will this be my rebirth
or my awakening?
The entry had ended there. There was nothing phenomenal about the poem. There wasn't even any aspect in the poem to which he could hold on to. Yet there was an endearing honesty and subtle fear of moving into new place. He could picture the girl's anxiety about fitting into a social hierarchy in a college as a new student. He stared at the screen for few more minutes re-reading those four lines. His mind had dislodged itself from himself and was analyzing the character of the author. He shook his head in an attempt to get rid of thoughts which he shouldn't be harboring in the first place. He heard his mother coming and rustling around the place. He had promised his mother that he would help her with dinner and decided that he would also share his coffee with her; but not without sending this girl a reply. He smiled all the way till he finished his comment to her post.
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It was D-Day. They had to leave their town, their friends, relatives, school and most importantly their father and start a new life at new place. It made them both elated and sad at the same time. Khushi had slept in as usual, a habit that she had been accustomed to over summer holidays which she currently deeply regretted. For once, she wanted to join her father when he finished his morning prayer and prepared himself a steaming cup of tea. As usual loose words had kept her awake till late in the night or very early in the morning which made sleep take a hike far away from her. Eventually she had fallen asleep after she managed to bring out what her subconscious was screaming at her in encrypted words. After deciphering it, her eyes had watered. With all her possessions already packed, she decided to post it directly on her blog since she was very sure that no one would really read into it.
She was in for a pleasant surprise when she logged into the college website. She had one comment on her post. She clicked on the link to view that comment.
I can be a prince charming who will kiss and wake you up from the slumber that you have been in. Or should I be the one who nurses the baby phoenix when it rises out of its own ashes?
-- Library_Guy
She blushed when she read the comment. She clicked on the link to check the guy's page. It looked like he was writing something like what she did. His entry was a small one posted only a day ago. It was titled - "On the beach during sunset"
Ebb and tide
rise and fall
My chest on motion
and so is ocean
Hands in hair with sand "to-go"
Sands abandoned of human touch
we wait for darkness to devour
She smiled at his words. She loved sunset more than sunrise and she understood exactly what it felt like when the day ended. He had summed up what she felt on a daily basis whenever she left the company of her friends and headed home and turned herself in; because that's when the loneliness generally hit. She shook her head and left a comment of her own. She posted the string of words that had bothered her whole night and titled it - "For my father".
Shoulder to shoulder
I meet his height
Tear for tear
I meet his defeat
throat clamps
eyes well up
I am strong! I tell him.
he shakes his head,
hugs me close
that's when I know
in his mind
I am but a child
She heard her father downstairs and logged off and sighed.
It was now time to leave.
Edited by RockBarbie - 10 years ago
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