The Circle of Life

Once upon a time, Mom went into labor. Yeah, that’s where it all starts, doesn’t it? (This is the part after the Happily-Ever-After, the one they seldom show)

After quite some time of panicking, huffing & puffing, screaming, several glasses of ice-chips and hours of birthing that tested her threshold of pain, out popped an itsy-bitsy baby.

‘It’s a girl!’ cried the Doctor. Mom was just happy it was a healthy baby and Dad couldn’t speak for the emotion choked his throat up. Inside, they both questioned their parenting abilities while vowing to bring her up her like the princess she was.

Dad looked at his two girls, proud beyond words can explain. His little nest was complete now. His love had borne fruit.

Mom didn’t mind that she, for the first time since they fell in love, didn’t have her handsome husband’s undivided attention; he was philandering it all on the little miracle that she’d borne. She didn’t mind at all.

They went home.

Her first smile had them on their knees, her cry had them scampering for solutions. They recorded her every movement, reveled in the length of her pretty eyelashes, rejoiced in her deep dimple and knew she had them both twisted around her little finger.

Mom had to fight her own tears when she cried on the first day of school. She went an hour early to pick her baby up just because she couldn’t wait any longer. She worried so much; what if she gets hungry, what of some kid pinches her, what if… Nobody knew her baby like she did.

Dad’s heart almost broke when she came back from the bicycle ride with a scraped knee. While he whispered comforts into her ear and rocked her to sleep on his chest, he wondered how he’d deal with a broken heart, God forbid.

She grew in leaps and bounds.

Mom had conversations with her. Told her about the birds and bees and all in between all the while wondering if her little princess had grown old enough to have The Talk with. She still seemed too young, a mere child.

Dad watched her from afar, playing the disciplinarian and refusing to let her go for the ten day class trip to Goa. He didn’t budge; not to her tears or rants or door-banging. Later he told Mom to take her shopping.

She drifted apart; from the parents, who she’d admired, loved, trusted. They became strangers while a whole new world opened up to her. She experimented with her boundaries; she touched, got burnt and touched again.

She had fun. She took pictures, she flirted, she drank coffee and bunked classes. She flunked and topped and wrote bull in her papers. She tried on clothes and didn’t buy them. She painted her nails black and didn’t care. She made a lot of noise, learnt to drive in her friend’s car, ran along the beach, barefoot screaming with her BFF’s – her oyster, the world and beyond.

She fell in love. And got her heart broken into a million pieces. She learnt. And grew.

She fought for her individuality, refused to be swayed by the society. Stood stead by what she believed in.

She made choices, her own. She lived with it. She made mistakes and learnt how to make them go away.

But somewhere along the way she realized that the only ones who’d stay with her through hell and high water were Mom and Dad. She tried to deal with Mom’s concern, she tried to do right. She tried not to wear the mini-skirt in front of dad.

She tried to understand. Because she loved them.

She got a job, one that she loved. If she was ecstatic, they were beyond proud. She did well, she became a career woman. She was the Office Bitch and the one they came to for all the answers. She multi-tasked and blew minds. She reached the top of the ladder and yet remained Dad’s little ‘peanut’.

She fell in love again. He stayed. And made a difference. And made her happy. She lived in seventh heaven with her feet planted firmly on ground zero and realized that this is it.

She got married. And it broke her heart. She didn’t understand why she’d to give her home up, leave her parents. And they reassured her that it was the beginning of her wonderful new life, that they’d always be there.

She became a mother. And our story comes a full circle.

She understood. Everything.

The sacrifices, the unconditional love, the choices, the concern.

She cherished them, the pillars in her life.

She prayed for them, their well-being.

She loved them back, unconditionally.

For she realized that without them, she’d be nothing.

Thus the story of a girl goes on. 

It’s your story and mine. Your life and mine. 

Your problems and mine. Your Bloody Mary and mine.

Let’s share...

The heartbreaks and the Kohl,

The celebrations and the fruit roll,

The love and the laughter,

The tears and the PMS,

The secrets and treats,

The sisterhood and the lust,

The forever issues with weight.

Cheers to bad hair days, being ourselves, getting rid of jerk boyfriends and bitchy ex-friends, cheers to making a place for ourselves in the world and getting our make up right. Cheers to blowing their minds and having fun. Cheers to kicking back and relaxing and to getting down and dirty. 

Being a girl is SO much fun.
Lets be girls together.