More than a bad Hair Day

Elita Karim

It is a wonder how, at times, we depend on people to make us feel wonderful within. We unconsciously show our vulnerability and seek for care and protection from our peers. It turns out that our senses are happy when there are others around to appreciate us, in the raw, well, at least sometimes.

You have days driven down to the dogs, filled with classes, assignments, professors to handle, exams to study for, work for your pocket money and also the important little statement on paper termed as 'experience', nauseating personalities to smile at and the ever-beaming people to be stern with. If that's not the end of it all, you suddenly remember the long-gone promise made to 'baby-sis' of helping her with her Algebra class test, not to mention your own midterms and the research paper you are doing on Jane Austen. While you hang around to hail a CNG or any other possible mode of transport to take you to work, you catch a glimpse of your 'chum' from the good old days, now turned into an absolute 'cool-dude', hovering about arm in arm with his 'just-like-younger-sister' friend. As you stand around smirking at the scene, another SMS of "I want to friendship with you", call me beeps your cell phone into existence.

Suddenly, this bizarre emotion of loneliness hits you so hard, that you have to hold yourself to survive the unexpected rush of abstract images of everyone being unfamiliar and the world being a cruel, cruel place for just about anybody. You look at the trees, the heavens and the birds flying south for winter, and dramatically think of them being luckier in a greater way than you yourself. You think of shedding some tears to go with these absurd feelings of yours, and then decide against it, since no one is around to actually pay any attention.

So, all the woes and sob stories are dumped on, naturally, online, discussed thoroughly with friends the same night. Your engrossment in transferring all the anguish and miseries through your fingers on msn, actually has you lose track of time and makes you late for your 09:40 am class the next day, once again.

You rush to the shower, to find the shampoo bottle all finished. With your bunch of hair all stuffed in with a punch-clip, you skip the daily chore of wearing your contacts and just rush off to class, wearing absolute rags, sandals and black framed goggles to see better with. You don't bother to smile back at people, because you know that you probably would match Medusa's picture if only you had snakes instead of messy, curly hair on your head. Besides the fact that you look like a complete dumpster, and probably smell like one too since you didn't have time for deodorant spraying in the morning, you also realise that you left the project outline on your bedroom desk. Feeling lost already, you slump into a chair and go through the endless numbers of lectures, question and answer sessions and updates on submission dates and exams.

Once done with classes, you are ready to go to work, when suddenly, someone walks by you, smiles and says hello. The world stops spinning for a while, lights become brighter like out of the heavens and everything seems to slow down, just like they show it in the movies. The smile shines and eyes twinkle, and to your utter horror, you even seem to hear a background melody!

Your hand automatically rises to your hair to tuck in the loose strand, your bunny teeth show up in your mile-long-smile, and all of a sudden, you feel like you're the most beautiful girl in the world. A day worth living anytime!

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2004