They were standing
in the foyer that linked both departments, engaged in what seemed to me from a
distance like a heart to heart. My elder sister was beaming, a beautiful smile
played across the edges of her face. She always wore that smile and never hesitated
to distribute it liberally. I approached them from behind, my sister facing me
directly but her course mate; with whom she was having the talk had his back at
me. The foyer was crowded in its traditional manner and they didn’t seem to
notice me approaching, the young man was so engrossed in the conversation and
was making gestures with virtually every mobile part of his body, “does she
even smile? She walks around with this intimidating look like she is the only
one on the planet. You guys are so different- you are the quintessential warm
and fuzzy lady and your sister is” the epitome of cold and hard I supplied from
behind him. You should have seen his face; he looked like someone who had just
had an encounter with a ferocious wraith. His mouth fell open but not a sound
proceeded forth. Gaze glued to the ground, he waved hastily at my sister and
disappeared into the departmental library.
We began our regimented walk to the hostel in silence until we got away from earshot, I guffawed and my sister gave me the usual long chastising stare. “It’s is your forte isn’t it? You simply love being the bad cop”
Still consumed in my laughter, I answered, we both can’t play good cop, it’s a buzz killer! She laughed too and we continued our chatter all the way to the hostel, as was our norm.
Back at the university, 99 percent of the time, you would be certain to find me in my sister’s company and vice versa. The odds were a smidgen of occasions. People admired our closeness. We shared almost everything. Her course mate was accurate in his verdict- we were completely different and we still are.
I wouldn’t walk on the street with a smile plastered across my face, I thought it was idiocy. I had my jolly times though but I guess they were classified. You simply had to earn it! I said exactly what I thought without flinching and more often than not, created a really ugly scene for my sister to clean up which she always did effortlessly with a lot of poise and finesse. She could waltz through the lion’s den with her characteristic aplomb!
At some point down the developmental ladder, I decided I wanted to be just like my elder sister-graceful, elegant, charming, warm, soft and may be a little mushy. I decided I was going to eliminate the old me. I was sick of carrying the invisible sticky note on my forehead that had difficult written all over it but how long did the charade last? You guess!
I caught the epiphany in our final year at the university and from then on, we joked about our differences like in the instance above. I stopped getting hurt and irascible when people made their comparisons and tagged us. It was the beginning of a pleasant transmogrification. I demystified it. Being different doesn’t make you an ogre if you can discover how to constructively weld it to reinvent your personality.
I happen to know a story that I would love to share with you in the light of buttressing my point. I remember this story very vividly but what I fail to recall is where I heard it from or maybe read it from. Anyway, it happened in a very remote period. In the palace of a great king in the east lived a number of servants. Male and female serving their king with fervor but there was a certain young lad that had a hunch back. He was discriminated against by the other servants and considered a curse from the eternal keeper of the kingdom but he would always refute their words. He believed he was a blessing from the keeper and pointed it out to all of them unwaveringly.
He also maintained that someday, they will all treat him with respect like that accorded to a king for the same disability they antagonize and josh him about. They further mocked him for his hilarious assertions and so was the status quo at the servant’s quarters for years. Life was almost unbearable for the hunchbacked servant. He had not a single ally and was trampled upon at the slightest of mishap with no one to assuage his shame but he went about his chores diligently and even the chores of other servants since the chief servant made him everyone’s stooge. Time passed and nothing changed, however, the king’s daughter began to notice how hard the hunchback worked and how poorly he was treated. Like a vermin, he would sit under the oak tree in the evenings when every other palace servant socialized and play his oboe, a riveting sound that pulled the princess from her chambers that evening and several other evenings.
The chief palace servant got wind of the budding rendezvous between the hunchback and the princess and decided to sabotage it.
On a beautiful evening, after the sun had retired and the moon was gradually unveiling her beauty simultaneously as the wind whistled in a soft enthralling manner, he began to lurk around the oak tree till he was certain the princess had clandestinely arrived at the scene to listen to the mesmerizing sound of the hunchback’s oboe,
We began our regimented walk to the hostel in silence until we got away from earshot, I guffawed and my sister gave me the usual long chastising stare. “It’s is your forte isn’t it? You simply love being the bad cop”
Still consumed in my laughter, I answered, we both can’t play good cop, it’s a buzz killer! She laughed too and we continued our chatter all the way to the hostel, as was our norm.
Back at the university, 99 percent of the time, you would be certain to find me in my sister’s company and vice versa. The odds were a smidgen of occasions. People admired our closeness. We shared almost everything. Her course mate was accurate in his verdict- we were completely different and we still are.
I wouldn’t walk on the street with a smile plastered across my face, I thought it was idiocy. I had my jolly times though but I guess they were classified. You simply had to earn it! I said exactly what I thought without flinching and more often than not, created a really ugly scene for my sister to clean up which she always did effortlessly with a lot of poise and finesse. She could waltz through the lion’s den with her characteristic aplomb!
At some point down the developmental ladder, I decided I wanted to be just like my elder sister-graceful, elegant, charming, warm, soft and may be a little mushy. I decided I was going to eliminate the old me. I was sick of carrying the invisible sticky note on my forehead that had difficult written all over it but how long did the charade last? You guess!
I caught the epiphany in our final year at the university and from then on, we joked about our differences like in the instance above. I stopped getting hurt and irascible when people made their comparisons and tagged us. It was the beginning of a pleasant transmogrification. I demystified it. Being different doesn’t make you an ogre if you can discover how to constructively weld it to reinvent your personality.
I happen to know a story that I would love to share with you in the light of buttressing my point. I remember this story very vividly but what I fail to recall is where I heard it from or maybe read it from. Anyway, it happened in a very remote period. In the palace of a great king in the east lived a number of servants. Male and female serving their king with fervor but there was a certain young lad that had a hunch back. He was discriminated against by the other servants and considered a curse from the eternal keeper of the kingdom but he would always refute their words. He believed he was a blessing from the keeper and pointed it out to all of them unwaveringly.
He also maintained that someday, they will all treat him with respect like that accorded to a king for the same disability they antagonize and josh him about. They further mocked him for his hilarious assertions and so was the status quo at the servant’s quarters for years. Life was almost unbearable for the hunchbacked servant. He had not a single ally and was trampled upon at the slightest of mishap with no one to assuage his shame but he went about his chores diligently and even the chores of other servants since the chief servant made him everyone’s stooge. Time passed and nothing changed, however, the king’s daughter began to notice how hard the hunchback worked and how poorly he was treated. Like a vermin, he would sit under the oak tree in the evenings when every other palace servant socialized and play his oboe, a riveting sound that pulled the princess from her chambers that evening and several other evenings.
The chief palace servant got wind of the budding rendezvous between the hunchback and the princess and decided to sabotage it.
On a beautiful evening, after the sun had retired and the moon was gradually unveiling her beauty simultaneously as the wind whistled in a soft enthralling manner, he began to lurk around the oak tree till he was certain the princess had clandestinely arrived at the scene to listen to the mesmerizing sound of the hunchback’s oboe,
