The Enlightenment

“Mom I NEED this dress okay? Cmon, I don’t tear clothes to wear them, I am NORMAL. I am buying a readymade slit dress. Puhleez na, I won’t ask for another such dress all year”. Even as my mom got ready to tell me that I wouldn’t be getting such a dress EVER, I pushed the words out of my mind. The dratted conscience-mamu would get his chance later when I’d realize that the dress really didn’t suit me.

What was the whole point anyway? A fresher’s party. Yes, that time of the year when hormone-overloaded teenagers beg, borrow, and scheme to win a coveted plastic crown. I was pretending hard to be one of those super-cool types who did not have to get into a party to be cool. But that wasn’t working. I stood in front of the mirror, flattening my tummy and practicing the million-dollar smile. Heck, all the hotties in campus would be in one blinking chamber, checking out girls. I wasn’t ready to be left behind! Never mind that I had two left feet, or that I did not know how to be a sexy damsel-in-distress.

Leaving behind a loudly muttering granny, I headed out in that glittery dress, with my companions-in-crime accompanying me. And what I saw scared me. The campus was filled with girls covered in shawls and jackets, stumbling in heels, adjusting straps, fighting over the mirror in the restroom, and what not. I joined the crowd eagerly, ignoring the fact that my own feet were struggling in an imbalanced pair of sandals. Some sacrifices ought to be made!

The disc we went to was full of sweaty young things rubbing shoulders and things, ahem. For a moment, I gulped in fright, but joined the mad cats anyway. The evening saw us wannabe Cinderellas gyrating clumsily (read dancing), pouting (read emphasizing the garish lip-gloss), acting hard-to-get (betrayed by the puppy-look in our smokey eyes), nodding eagerly to unintelligible music, and basically yelling all over the place. Nothing worked though. The crown (and a new boyfriend) went to the one female who was best at balancing her 55 kilos on 4-ft stilettos, swaying her hips, and looking better than her real self in just 10 layers of makeup.

I was upset. Was I not good enough? Did you need dancing skills to make you popular? Do you have to flirt to attract attention? *Sniff sob*. It took half an hour for me to clear my face of the eye makeup, and one month to clear my head. Never mind the lack of desperate male attention. The glittering dress was now lying in some forgotten corner, the heels were never used again, and the memory of that night was starting to fade. I was back to my usual self, a one-month old girl in engineering college. Novels, college fests, classroom chitchat, shopping sprees, good food and bad exams defined my life. I was once again, a smiling, chirping, princess of the world in my simple jeans and tee-shirts. Mom was so glad to have good old me back, pajamas, growling tummy, chubby fat and all.

And one day, it happened. This really nice guy walked up to me with a shy smile. “You got all those prizes na, in the talent contest? Congrats, and ummm must say, you’re cute too.” I closed my book and blinked. To this day, I haven’t forgotten what it takes to be a winner. Be yourself, just be damned good at it.