Hand in Glove...

...Should fit perfectly right? But why does that glove have to be someone else's? What if you find that glove ugly? What if it's little finger is too long? Does that mean you don't have the right to have a smaller little finger? Well apparently so. You need to stretch that little finger of yours, strain those joints almost to the point of snapping, till it fits that glove perfectly. Everyone's happy. You think you are too. But you just lost that hand you were born with.


Think about the number of times you made a choice according to what someone else wanted. You were in kindergarten and you made your first best friend. You come back home excitedly, throw your dirty shoes in the corner with laces still tied in a knot, and run to the kitchen in your soiled uniform to tell your mom everything about him. "You know mom. My friend D was standing on top of the jungle jim with hands held up in the air, for a good five minutes. Don't you think that's great? I wish I could be as brave as D". Mom says, "My god! This guy seems to be a daredevil. He's too rash for you. Don't mix with him too much from tomorrow okay? His parents have taught him nothing it seems." One act. A hundred judgements. You stop talking to him from the next day. What if Mom finds out? And anyway mom knows better. He isn't that cool after all. And just like that your tiny little brain invents multiple reasons to not like him, till the point you see no good in him at all. Just like that you forget the time when he gave you his apple when you dropped the lunchbox your mom packed for you, accidentally on the floor. And just like that you killed a part of you who wanted to be friends with a daredevil, and went in search for your mom's best friend.

When you entered Eleventh standard, you wanted to take up literature. Your engineer father tells you, " Son, humanities is for the brainless students. You're smart. You did so well in science so far. So why not Science? Then you can become an engineer like me or a doctor like your Grandfather later on. Your life will be smooth sailing after that, trust me. And we'll be so proud of you." You only realize later that there is nothing called 'smooth sailing' after all. And by that time it's too late. Your scientist uncle tells you, "Listen kid. Everyone in your family has done science. It's in your blood. You'll flourish in the field. Then you can become a scientist like me later on. And we'll all be so proud of you." And just like that he characterized your blood for you. It's a scientist's blood. You don't know it, but that uncle you meet once in two years knows for sure. And just like that you scratch out humanities and select science as your major. Just like that you crush your dreams of becoming a best selling author, and don your uncle's smelly lab coat. And just like that you killed a part of you who wanted to live a life of wordplay, and set out mixing pungent chemicals for a living instead.

When you entered college, you met a girl like no one else. She was an English Major. She laughed like she'd never known sadness. She painted with no inhibition. Free, bold confident strokes. She got absorbed in her canvass so much one morning, that in a distracted act of moving a strand of hair from her face, she smeared her forehead in olive green. She didn't even care to look into the mirror before she left her house. It was only when her friends in class pointed out the careless green smudge, did she realize how lost she had been all morning. But she laughed it off like she knew no bother in the world. You loved her. Your best friend told  you, "You love her?!! Have you lost your mind? Do you even know what love is?  And anyway she's far too immature for you. You won't be able to handle her." And just like that you let her go, never to meet her again. Not for once do you pause to think 'what if'. Just like that you killed that hapless child in you who never got to experience love.  And just like that you forget her, to make space for someone in the future, someone who your best friend approved of, only to find that the future had neither your perfect girl nor your 'best' friend.

And these happen to be only a few of your choices, which you thought were yours but in reality were someone else'. Everytime you set out to do something you want, your parents, your distant relatives who last saw you in the crib, your friends who conveniently forget you, your in-laws, your neighbours, your colleagues - all of them come to you and dump their treasured opinions on your head till it throbs and threatens to burst. The lines differentiating your happiness from theirs blur and soon the life you happen to call yours becomes theirs. And with every passing effort you make to please someone else, you kill a part of you until there is no real 'you' left. You die a silent death and someone called 'you' takes his place, and no one even sheds a tear for him. He dies like he never existed. And you still think you're alive? I'm not so sure anymore.