The Ramble of Weightlessness

It's been a long time since i at down and took a breath. 

All it took was the opening up of a little trapdoor at the top of the first flight of stairs that i ever climbed and i've been running ever since. What began as a paying pass-time has become my ball and  chain. And yet, i take my pair of wings from my leaden pursuer. 

School let out and opportunity came knocking. It didn't matter to me that it was my aunt and the rest of my family that set me up with my first paying job. It was 15 bucks a piece and for just a couple of lines a day, it seemed like heaven. It didn't dawn on me then, but i see it now. I grew up with the notion that earning something was the only way to get it. 

No! I'm not insinuating that i had to earn every pretty frock and addition to the already full fledged princess wardrobe that i had as a child. That was the era of the pampered brat. It changed with the coming of 'the Silver Bag'. The Silver Bag was the envy of every girly girl that i knew. It first made an appearance among the bag-army of my then 'best friend' (that is what i called her, stubbornly). I coveted it the moment i laid eyes on it.

The most beautiful of all possessions, it had to be mine...one day!

And so it began. I was to earn this little bauble of clear plastic and shining silver flaps. It was tiny and trendy and chic and dreamy and grown up and all in all, every goggle eyed Barbie-fan's dream. But it also cost three hundred Rupees. Three hundred. 

It was the most colossal amount i ever had to fit into my little brain because i was supposed to earn it. But earn it, i did.

The only thing that paid back then were chores, studies and good behavior and in denominations of fives and tens, i closed the gap between me and my Precious. And then, on that one marvellous evening, we went to that divine store in 'Camp' and I bought myself my Silver Bag. My Silver Bag.

MY Silver Bag.

The memory of the day is like a psychedelic trip. Colours stood out and voices are seared into my head. I remember it in snatches and oh, the feeling was too heady to be legal. And then it was mine. 

Somewhere, that threw a switch. It had to have. That's the only logical explanation for the sort of person i am now. Earning everything. All must be the product of an effort. There can be nothing free and nothing given. Nothing that i cannot stamp across with the brand of my own making. 

There are those people that might never understand why work, to me, comes before all else. And then there are those that understand me to the point where it feels a little scripted-- 'I know!' becomes the basis of the conversation. 

But whether it's my jeans, or my tome of history, or my shoes or my phone or the bill that goes with the connection or even the damned food that i shovel into me between lectures-- it came from me. I'm not mooching. I do not have to think that i have taken without deserving. I have learned that there is nothing like the feeling of being capable.

No! I cannot live off myself. And i will never claim that i am complete just yet... But i can want off myself.

I bewilder my mother sometimes when i burst out to her (and dad, if he's home and within earshot) "Thank you for making me able to earn *insert newest pride and joy*!" She may think that it's about the thing...but it's not!

You, reader, may think it's about boastful pride. It's not.

It's just wonderful to feel like this! It's wonderful to be dependent on yourself for what you need and not wonder whether your parents were right to give you something that they didn't really have to. It's free and it's bright and yes, i feel like singing! :)

--Karishma Modi