When I leave my confidence proudly hanging by my shoulder every morning, little do I realize how it gets badly worn out by things I seldom choose to ignore.
Lately, I have realized that I have this.. what do you say… innate tendency, or should I say ability, to allow myself to be bullied around. Wow. I mean that’s a marvelous skill to flaunt, aint it. So if there’s someone with an exactly opposite natural trait (that of being the most famous chest-thumping bully of whatever scummy corner of the Earth they belong to), I bow my head in absolute equanimity and spread my self esteem as if it were a red carpet to allow them to tango on that LEFT RIGHT AND CENTRE.
Note this now. There are some who would sternly turn down such attempts with a politle F.O. This happens with me and my ilk as well. Only, by the time we realize we could have said so and so to him/her, the little Chengez Khan within us would have done a tutu act and transformed into the second molecule of oxygen. By then, the verbal attack would have sung its last opera and we would be left standing all hollow and lousy.
The bullying here is not one of those go-get-me-a-paper-napkin categories. What I am talking about may be as simple as you-better-shut-up-because-I'm-talking-and-I’m-smarter-than-you or a look-I-am-your-self-acclaimed-God- Father/Mother/Sister/whoever-so-you-better-listen-to-me kinds of bullying. Guess who’s giving them the liberty to act smarter and allowing them to be self acclaimed God Fathers/ Mothers/Sisters/whoever. Can't be me... Or is it?
On days I feel I could snap back in equal squalor and jump the imaginary line of that rather unnecessary humility, I leave for my office with a sword in my hand, ready to battle anyone who dares me, Ghajhini style. But one sentence with a possible hint of negativity, and there… all the valor that I would have mustered with great labor throughout the previous night, would return to whichever page of history it came from, with a burnt hole in its belly. Then I wear one of those hey-I-have-a-Santa-stuck-in-my-teeth kinds of smile and forget everything to the glory of the Goddess of Tropical Rainforests of Africa. Now that’s what’s called coming back to the pavilion.
“You see”, I tell myself, “You can take the Rathod out of Ranjhore.. But you cannot take the Ranjhore out of the Rathod.”
…with a different application, of course…
But every story should have a happy ending. A ray of hope… Right?
Some day, I’ll get them….
Some day, the Goddess of Tropical Rainforests of Africa shall help me overthrow the world of bullies and rise above their superficially ballooning ego.
And I quote myself “There are no saints here. And you obviously do not want to be one…”
Wow. God Bless my grit.
And I quote myself “There are no saints here. And you obviously do not want to be one…”
Wow. God Bless my grit.
The Deep Fried Crab
