Life

Chapter 1-Recapitulate the Past

Life is a bumpy ride . It’s a launch after each bump, every time you hit a pit or have a flat tyre or probably run out of gas which is quite the current state of the War Infested World , you fix it. When I was 20, I thought life would follow a linear upward curve ..I will be as pretty as I am in my 20s, will eat the same lovely calories and not workout, I will get a job once I graduate and of course how can a millennial girl not have the ultimate goal-The superman ,hero , the saviour , the Knight in shining armour , the final destination.

Yes, I did my economics from Fergusson College Pune , one of the reputed institutes then ,Yes I completed my MS in Applied Economics from USA ,Yes I started my career in Amazon USA , Yes I am a product of Big Fours in India and yet I only banked on Prince Charming to rescue me .

Back in the day when I was in Pune, the only concern was exhausting pocket money and making sure I buy great clothes to look my best during my prime in my 20’s .Of course there was arrogance , of course there was pride and an innate lovely feeling that He will come , lay his eyes on me like a Bridgerton Noble Man , claim me and my worries will be kissed away forever . This forever unfortunately is too constant for this pretty capricious world. But this feeling of forever was the reason for those rosy cheeks and wide eyes in girls of that age .Why? I cannot answer that but to ignore your own abilities and await ‘Forever’ has been always the normal at least for 90’s kids .

So I worked hard, I grabbed some good positions yet yearned that one Hero will kiss my fears, woes away .Now when I look back, I think this entire brain block or rather smog on Forever is what is leading women in 30s to re-invent, re -vamp, re – direct and re-launch themselves and we will keep re-modelling and rebranding ourselves because the more and more you face the glitches of real life , the more you realise that you yourself can face, body , mind lift You .Romance is absolutely real , but some male in an Armani Suit will one day bump into you and will be captivated by your rosy cheeks which by the way turns paler as you get into more conversations with Microsoft Office than your real life and this suave urbane hero will be a panacea for all ailments including pale cheeks is imaginary .The rescue ranger we speak of exists but that you will be rescued from reality is delusional.

So I re-boot my life and successfully did the most applauded thing that women when they turn 30 do- Get Married .Some matches happened , some was AI made error and some utterly human and since now I wanted to be realistic, I decided that I will do some attribute checks like looks okay , eats healthy , speaks eloquent (only Tharoor struck women understand the issue with grammatical errors and btw m blaming the women for being picky not the erroneous English of suitors) and some irrational fear of going past 30 and fictitious lines on your face, finally makes you accede to wedlock which is the perceived cure of all infirmities in India.

Imagine a Mills & Boon brainwashed 90’s kid , binge watching SRK movies , finding Tharoor’s vocabulary orgasmic and she is well educated and works for big conglomerates and a marriage to a mortal instead of the amplified Greek God as one was bred & fed … isn’t life supposed to be chaotic .

UNLEARN – Correct Its exactly the right time to undo the expectations, to unlearn males, to unlearn that the 90’s Pretty Woman where Richard Gere was effortlessly charming and a Magnate is the outlier, the real Man is a human and to learn and accept humans is about getting along . My marriage was a union of two very disparate Homo-sapiens with absolute divergent outlook and soon enough we realised that we were better off singular than plural and when we did this mutually , no mammals were hurt. It was two matured individuals realising that mere attributes and cultural similarity can’t keep two people together . Yes, for generations people relied on this but for generations people also relied on ‘Pretty Woman’ and before that was ‘Helen of Troy’, so reliability and durability also keeps re-inventing and suddenly the so called Baron from the Damsel in distress or rather stress isn’t the ultimate destination but rather a reality check that la la land is far from what’s real and just like that after probably 15 years of romanticising an imaginary Duke, I realised I am no duchess and that I need to reboot my imagination and take charge of anxious me as life just handed me to the rightful owner -Myself.

Learnings

And Just like that at 34 with reorganisation of the Geo Political dynamics was also my dynamics with me. I had to learn to accept that I am flawed, cheeks are not exactly rosy , life throws curve balls, there is distress , there is a damsel , there are princes and charmers but most importantly there is You. Yes, the realisation destroys you , makes you feel lonely , its the dismantling of a system that has worked so beautifully in your head for years but come on we are Women , if we don’t re -do , recycle , re -visit, re -cover , no other human can .Women are resilient , they are born to bounce back , adapt , re create , re furnish and yes it’s not going to be easy but come on at least it will be realistic, Because lets face it our inflated expectation on love , pampering , being rescued was precluding our abilities to probably fetch things ourselves and once we realise , we unlearn that the Viscount won’t really ride on a sturdy colt to claim eternal love, its time to choose to be the Empress yourself. Because only You can undo You and re-Launch yourself .So what if the roles or characters changed , but at least you know how you want to be treated . So go ahead treat yourself the same way you expected someone else to treat you and this time good bad or ugly – it’s You against You.