And then when I grew up…

By

Tanvi Bijawat

Against all the social myths that may be against my mother’s will, I stepped onto this planet… Unaware that I was just whaling and puking in my mother’s arms, I started a journey called life. The little me who had hundreds of questions popping in my head for everything around me.

When the first day in the classroom meant tears …when a chocolate loss was my only fear, when I loved to drape my doll in a saree, when I tried to stand in front of the mirror and copy how my mother used to dress herself …when my dads anger was my finishing the milk glass… when tying a shoe lace was the biggest task… when my focus was if I balanced a switch in the middle, will the light go off or will it freckle?

When selecting a dress for my mother and she wearing it used to bring such a huge smile on my face …when little tea pots filled with water used to be my tea in playing with my kitchen sets … when all I dreamt was to become a princess of my very own fairy tales…  when I was busy dealing with my childhood … life was writing new chapters and sealing them for the right time when I must see … it seems like a moment of an eye blink, when today I am turning back to pages of my life I left far behind.

I grew up or was growing up but at every point I was realizing I was growing apart … growing apart with my physical appearance … growing apart from my parents … growing apart from that innocence in me .. .which was now taking the shape of maturity … suddenly it seemed life from a simple journey became a roller coaster ride.

A simple smile now was a manipulated smile … forced smile … or at times a smile which expressed each changing part of me… suddenly I had not just changed physically, I was forced to accept that I, before a human, am a girl, and with this word an endless number of unspoken restrictions implied on me … suddenly my father who had promised to stand by my side feared if my mistakes take both of us to other sides.. and then my teens brought those budding hormones in me which had the gravity to pull me to guys’ attraction .. yes! Each girl’s story my first sight to my teen love .. a phase when we feel we are on cloud nine, suddenly we start feeling beautiful through somebody else’s eyes .. when things seem like a dream.. after many distractions .. after so many saturations .. we sit back in a room which is dim and all we are left with is a hope for a new dawn .. it’s that moment when we introspect and properly think, when “I was a child all I dreamt was to grow up, and the moment it happened all I had were memories where I wished from every shooting star to bring back the childhood”… that very moment when my mom drapes me in her sari and I smile… flipping those pages back when I dressed my doll… every day I grew an inch and all I learnt was a new me … I made mistakes, I fell .. from paddling a tricycle I race my motor cars at speeds so high … from cooking food in my kitchen set … I now cook food for my family … things which a little me ignored, a grown up me focuses the most on them …

The transition from a cute little kid to a beautiful young lady was not easy but then I see myself now reflected in the mirror, the metamorphosed me! I am stunned and amazed and somewhere even proud of what I am today. My growing up might have been arduous but the grown up me is worth the ordeal…

My life every day changes like a kaleidoscope, changes into a new shape, each more beautiful than the one before and yes, I am hungry for more images to add to my life’s book.

So ultimately the paradigm shift is obvious, palpable and searching for new networks … which I am ready to explore … and then yes, I am a grown up girl …

It’s not my… it’s not your story … it’s a story of every human who is a girl.

Tanvi Bijawat 

I am Tanvi Bijawat, a journalism student. I did my schooling at Delhi Public School Varanasi. My hobbies start with writing and end with a platform where my writing gets an acceptance and appreciation. I aspire to become an author whose strength is the pen and emotions … my writing revolves more around youth.