I quickly draped my golden saree around myself, dusted talcum powder over my face and threw my hair up in a high ponytail and ran downstairs. We go out almost every weekend, so I knew the routine. It was almost like a part of my life, hanging out with friends, leaving the glum reality behind and living in a fantasy world for a few hours. The music that was played, the way I sang, talked and joked around made me feel bright and radiant. I felt accepted for once, as my friends respected and loved me, but it would all end by twelve, early morning, just like it did for Cinderella, but unlike her, I could never escape my fate.
I was well known throughout the community. Everyone knew my name, the successful life I lived, kids younger would look up to me, parents would think of me as a role model for kids, young adults would see me as their superior in intelligence, but what I had never experienced was a true childhood. I never ran around like other kids, in fear that I would look like a rowdy child and get hurt, I never talked, in fear that I would not look attentive, I didn't even have many friends my age, in fear that I would look like an ordinary child. I lived a model life for the judgement of society. I couldn't reveal my inner feelings, instead, I was stuck smiling like an idiot to myself and day dreaming every spare second about memories i created.
For a period of time, I wasn't like this. During my teenage years, I made the best friends anyone could hope for. Rhea, Karan, Jay, Arya and I were inseparable. We used to call ourselves the blessings in disguise because we all brought out the beauty in each other for those select few moments before we all faces our drab boring lives again. It was almost like I had a lamp inside my body and it had been switched off for so long that it flared and fired up at the lightest touch, which is what happened with my gang. Our story began almost eleven years ago. We weren't a gang until then. We were all friends long before that but our main story began much later.
