chapter 3
though my thoughts should not have led me to where they had but that is how mind and thoughts work , they are always unpredictable. so , at the moment when i should have been thinking of how to resolve the issue or perhaps simply the fight and what we said to each other in our angry outburst i reverted back instantly to my own childhood when dolls were an issue with me and my cousins. we were a middle class family and in the early days of my childhood we did not have much money and ofcourse, such things are forgotten or perhaps deliberately erased out of memory and more so if happened in childhood, for we always wish to keep it diamond like , shining more brightly with each polish of recollection. i sat down in my chair after putting my daughter to sleep. laid back and tried to relax myself , trying not to think about what had happened today evening. but all efforts were futile. it was like a deep wound which does not hurt much at that instant but when bandaged and kept in quiet pains you the most in midnight. so while thinking how such things like dolls and petty fight between children led us adults to fight furiously with each other i was reminded of my own childhood when the number of barbie dolls was certainly an issue with us.
our parents hardly have money for many things and the playthings obviously seemed a wastage of money . so the time when i ranked second in my class i asked my mother to buy a barbie for me. and it was a huge affair indeed . we planned a name giving ceremony for the doll as if she were a real kid being born in the family and my cousins paternal aunt stitched a dress for the doll. so we gave her a name ceremoniously in the evening ( what i don't remember now) by chanting some imaginary mantras in the ceremony and praying for her well being. i had 2 or three dolls in totality then and this was my second barbie after the one which was gifted to me by my same cousins who helped me to give a name to this one. and till date i have only three barbie dolls when my cousins had seven or eight. but i must say my mother took as much pains as she could to keep me happy with my dolls and as barbie dolls were expensive so once or twice i was presented with other beautiful dolls . but the craze of having a barbie never went away till the affection with dolls faded. and everytime we cousin sisters met we used to count the number of barbie dolls we had and i always scored low and i was depressed and they never really did count any of my other dolls , which were infact two. but these things mattered then as they matter now and slowly the thought that it was all kids' mistake that we fought faded from my mind. they are as we were , nothing had changed.
but never did this prejudice or pride came in form of a class statement just as my daughter made today . this was indeed frightening. though as children then we were making class statements but never were they so direct , straight- to-the-face as today and that had made me frantic. as truth had slapped me and my brother in public and we had no route to escape. this truth is a very complex thing as love, everybody wants it when it is not present but when given , we can't take it... honesty is the most difficult food to digest. perhaps this was the reason that had provoked us to the limits , it came suddenly when we were remembering our golden moments of past and then the present came with a bang giving no time for us to think and act. money mattered everywhere , even in the purest and truest of relations- ah! what was left in the world? this greenery had just deforested the greenery of our rich evergreen relationship, but then i thought i can't let this happen.
our parents hardly have money for many things and the playthings obviously seemed a wastage of money . so the time when i ranked second in my class i asked my mother to buy a barbie for me. and it was a huge affair indeed . we planned a name giving ceremony for the doll as if she were a real kid being born in the family and my cousins paternal aunt stitched a dress for the doll. so we gave her a name ceremoniously in the evening ( what i don't remember now) by chanting some imaginary mantras in the ceremony and praying for her well being. i had 2 or three dolls in totality then and this was my second barbie after the one which was gifted to me by my same cousins who helped me to give a name to this one. and till date i have only three barbie dolls when my cousins had seven or eight. but i must say my mother took as much pains as she could to keep me happy with my dolls and as barbie dolls were expensive so once or twice i was presented with other beautiful dolls . but the craze of having a barbie never went away till the affection with dolls faded. and everytime we cousin sisters met we used to count the number of barbie dolls we had and i always scored low and i was depressed and they never really did count any of my other dolls , which were infact two. but these things mattered then as they matter now and slowly the thought that it was all kids' mistake that we fought faded from my mind. they are as we were , nothing had changed.
but never did this prejudice or pride came in form of a class statement just as my daughter made today . this was indeed frightening. though as children then we were making class statements but never were they so direct , straight- to-the-face as today and that had made me frantic. as truth had slapped me and my brother in public and we had no route to escape. this truth is a very complex thing as love, everybody wants it when it is not present but when given , we can't take it... honesty is the most difficult food to digest. perhaps this was the reason that had provoked us to the limits , it came suddenly when we were remembering our golden moments of past and then the present came with a bang giving no time for us to think and act. money mattered everywhere , even in the purest and truest of relations- ah! what was left in the world? this greenery had just deforested the greenery of our rich evergreen relationship, but then i thought i can't let this happen.
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