She aint my lucky charm nor am I hers. But luck is that single word I’d relate to her, over and over. It was long back. Long long back, when we were too small kids to even know the implications of being lucky. She called me lucky once. And hence started our distance. For a long time, I thought she took me for what I’m. Just the way I’m. But then, I didnt appear so transparent to her. Well, not her fault that I blackened myself. 🙂
A childhood friend, who grew more than to be a cousin. But then, we could have gotten better. Thinking of those tiny nasty things that we did…Lol. Wish I could make them public! She was always the good girl. Soft spoken, gentle, beautiful and loving. The perfect ritualistic orthodox innocent Brahmin girl anybody would love to call theirs. I wasn’t jealous that she’s all that. But it really got on my nerves when people compared me with her. How she helped her mom in the kitchen. How she respected her dad. How she took care of her flowing hair. How she obeyed elders. How she never spoke back. How she ‘that’. How she ‘this’. Ah! It was exhausting. And what does she say about it! “Soumya, eppadi di mudiyarathu unnala!”. Lol. She thinks high about me. She would have loved to rebel the way I do. Talk back the way I talk. Not obey, for once. Not seek advice, making a decision. She still likes me the way I am and the entire world is pushing me to be her.
I can foresee that. How my life is yet to be pushed to be a facsimile of hers. But it doesn’t matter. For I know what she is. What she wants. For the pious, loving, caring, obedient daughter she is, she’d also want to pull a prank on her dad. Fight with her mom for days. Sneak into her brother’s phone. Yay! It aint just me.
The two decades of
our lives, changes have swept all over us. So much in her. So much more in me. Beyond those infinite distances that has grown between us, I still owe her a rightful place in my life. When my dad scolds me for grabbing the glass from her and sipping it with my lips before I return, I should always be able to say, “Lakshmi thaane appa!”. My lucky lechu!
The Last Straw 