Friday, February 15, 2008

On oneself and being someone else

Dear you,
I guess I was 13 years old then. I was on the terrace of an apartment in somajiguda(hyderabad)
And, on that night i was with my best friend. We talked , looked at the stars, sang, played,
and we could see the lit up Buddha at the centre of the Hussain Sagar. We were having fun and then my best friend asked me - "if you were to be born as someone else, who would you like to be ?"
I gave it some thought. Very few people would ask me such interesting questions...
Maybe it was only her. Only she'd ask me such interesting questions and I'd ponder over them
knowing there's no particular right answer. And those were times when I'd really think of what I
really am and what I really wanted. After running my mind through the likes of the president of
the U.S ,a tamil musician in front of a packed hall and some scientist who's just come across the most freaky invention of the earth I made up my mind finally and said "I should like to be myself... with some modifications though" . I still remember her smile when I said that .

And now after five years, when I come to think of it, I figure the answer doesn't stand the same now. I now seem to have performance issues, desperate wants, deep insecurities, lost friendships, teen desires, new doubts, shrinking enthusiasm and a dearth of confidence .... I don't know. I never had this stuff before... and I never needed to analyse.

As I think of it now, I figure out there are lots of things I want to be. I wish I could be some guy up there climbing a virtual ladder with his mom and dad all proud of him. Or I wish I was the man sitting behind the camera of Alai payuthe.And then, I strongly wish I was a stuffed dog called ...
Worse still,I'm not sure if I can blurt this out cuz in real vague times, I wish I was that guy in
Original Sin.


But hey, before you end up thinking I'm some vague hypocrite, I should tell you that though I'm an accepted hypocrite now I had never in fact lied to my best friend. And to this day, over all those people I mentioned, there's this one person I envy a lot and wished I can be him now. This chap's a thirteen year old kid called Prathyush who being on the terrace of an apartment in Somajiguda talked to his best friend,played, laughed, sang and gazed at stars. He could also look at the lit up Buddha at the centre of Hussain Sagar (Oh, how I envy him!). I wish I could be that kid cuz he was so confident, so innocent, so cozy...
and above all, he was happy being himself.

Love,
Prathyush.