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BLURB
Once someone said, ‘Courage is not having the strength to go on. It is going on even when you don’t have the strength.’
Atul had always been living under those covers wishing not to get noticed by anyone. And if possible, he was willing to live it that way for all his life.
But life’s course is something that never runs as per our desire. Each one of us has our fair share of struggle to survive in life. If you wish to know what rising up is, you must know what falling down is!
A moment of courage was all it took for Atul to realize that this wasn’t the life he deserved. He was getting punished for something that wasn’t even his fault. So, standing strong against everyone who dejected him, he decided to take the first step towards a life free of his own fears because you won’t know how strong you are, unless and until standing strong is the only option you have.
~°~°~
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He knew it wasn’t going to be easy but he had no idea it would be so difficult either. For all his life, Atul had been trying to hide behind those extra large sized clothes. But today, finally gathering the courage, he had decided to let it all out.
Making a futile attempt to hide his trembling fingers by tapping them against his knees, he looked around to see the vast throng, most probably gathered for the same purpose as him. Knowing that this was going to take some more time, he allowed his mind to drift back to the day it all started.
Atul never had a well-built physique, rather he had always been on the chubbier side. So, he never paid any heed towards the changes that came with puberty. It was on his thirteenth birthday that he noticed two small yet prominent bulges on his chest. Neither his father nor his elder brother had any of them. His innocent brain questioned… ‘Does that make him abnormal?’
That was the first day he wore clothes two sizes larger than his original size.
But the most fatal blow came to him when he was sixteen years old. Atul had always loved playing cricket. He was considered one of the best among the kids of their locality. But when he returned one evening, he wasn’t his usual self. He was all lost in the words he had heard hardly a few minutes earlier…
‘Atul, do you wish to marry a girl? Or even better, a boy with all those breasts?’ ‘Are you even a boy?’ ‘Do you want to get your sexuality checked?’
Those immoral, detestable remarks became his undoing. His young brain had finally accepted that the protruding bulges on his chest were abnormal.
He had Gynaecomastia. That was the last day he played cricket before deciding to isolate himself from everyone else in the world.
With a deep breath, he was brought back from those afflicting memories with an affectionate stroke of a thumb on the back of his hand and without opening his eyes, he knew who it was.
Swati entered his life when everyone had stepped out. Supporting him at each and every moment, her confidence in him was the only thing that strengthened him. If he was standing here today, it was all because of her.
“This isn’t your fault, Atul. You don’t deserve this”, she had told him and he himself didn’t know why but after eight years of sequestering his own self, he finally wanted to confide into someone.
“Mr. Atul Sharma”, a voice called out breaking his train of thoughts.
“We are next”, he opened his eyes to Swati’s voice. Holding his hand, she tried to ease off his trembling as they walked hand-in-hand towards the door that read ‘Dr. B. R. Arora’.
Keeping aside all the apprehensions, Atul, for once, wished for a better life. Maybe, as he fights with his fears, things would take a turn towards a life he had always wished for… confident, forthright, optimistic and always willing to take a chance.
