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Manik Malhotra, a senior in the school run by Nyonika Malhotra, seems to have everything a teenager can ask for: life-defining friendships, a free pass to escaping trouble and a fashion empire title - "Mal...
Please play the song 'Remember When' by Alan Jackson when you're reading this, for the best experience <3 thanks for the votes and comments, FAM! Keep it flowing, love to read them hehe! :3
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18 August 2010
"You don't forget the face of the person who was your last hope."
― Suzanne Collins
I generally don't write diaries because in my house, if anyone finds out, I will be in deep trouble. Diaries are meant to conceal secrets, but if it lands in the hands of anyone else, then? Like how my mother wrote about my father, and it landed in my custody.
"Nandan, you were hope, and filled with it. I didn't seek you or seek love, but I found both and if you're wondering how I know it's love–you heard parts of me that screamed my love to you, when not once did I mention it myself. My fireflies, you believed in." I highlighted this, because my mother herself was such a beautiful author. Her voice always wandered off into a story, and countless ones did she mention in the seven years she was with me.
But Chikkamma (my paternal uncle's wife) reassured me that my experience in Mumbai will be worthwhile, because this is the city of dreams. So far I have no best friends, so I think you'll be my first. I'll hide you where nobody can find you. I'll also be as informative as possible because who knows, maybe a few years down the line I would be on a hospital bed diagnosed with amnesia and all that I feel now, I'd be feeling again for the first time. Okay, I'm kidding!
I'll start off with how much I hate this city–Mumbai, Maharashtra, not because of how different it is, because it practically isn't, but because of how out of place I feel in these tiny confined cubicles called rooms, that aren't even the size of Bangalore bathrooms! We moved here only three nights ago, but it feels like it's been forever, out of which one night I couldn't get a second of sleep because of two rats locked up in the bathroom next to my bed. Only three out of the twenty boxes we packed up while shifting have been opened and the little space resembles a dislodged dungeon, with plastic wrapped over anything that is immobile.
This colony-like place we now 'belong' to–entire streets and crossroads full of houses–is not where I want to be, not where I thought I would make friends on the first day! Unpacking was an exclusive Murthy household task, since not one courteously reached out to us. Not to mention, nobody here speaks anything but Hindi or Marathi, sometimes English–but only sometimes!
Abhi though, the same day we moved in, went off to play basketball with Aiyappa knew who! He already established a friend group here, which is not surprising and I'll tell you why in a minute. When I do wish I should've gone to play too, I think about the possibility of ten other 12th grade big boys, who were experts at the game and thank my stars for being socially awkward. I would've gotten trashed otherwise.
