Birthday Presents, August Nexus [best books to read for beginners txt] 📗

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My mother used to say “For losing something you need to have it first. You can’t lose something which you don’t possess in the first place.”

                                      

Prologue

 

My Seventeenth Birthday.....

 

 

‘It is a big heap you have, you are lucky that you have such friends.’ Said Eva, my cousin. We were in my room analyzing my birthday presents.

‘Yupp, I guess.’ Said I. If only she knew. I was lucky. Yes but not for having good friends. I was lucky because I had rich classmates.

Yesterday was my Sixteenth birthday and I threw a birthday party to my friends at my house. When I woke up in the morning I was pretty sure that nobody is going to show up but still we were preparing for the most unhappening party this world will ever see. My father was running around doing stuffs. I and Eva were decorating the room in which we were going to host my friends, maybe. Mum was in kitchen preparing snacks and food. By the evening we were all set to receive a bunch of my classmates for my 16th birthday party. Dad had brought the cake and soft drinks. Mom got the snacks and food ready. Eva and I finished decorating the room with balloons, paper strips and Happy Birthday stickers etc. Though I wasn’t expecting anybody, I still did my best to make this part of my house look like a party place. After getting everything set and placing the cake and drinks on the central glass table we started the thing called waiting for guests. Waiting for somebody is not my thing. I loathe waiting for people to show up and that’s why I have never been to airports or railway stations to pickup anybody. Ten minutes passed but nobody came and as I was trying to come up with words to tell my parents that nobody is going to come and that my acquaintances at school are not as friendly as they believe them to be, I heard people talking at my doorsteps and a bell rang. My father went to receive the guests while I tried to look as less surprised as I can at their arrival. So finally they were there. The first person to enter the room was, dad, well obviously, following him was the ‘least expected to arrive person’ on my guest list, Aryan. Following him was ‘The Birds’. The Birds was the title given to a group of three girls who were special friends of Aryan. Ananya, Shrinika and Vrinda. All students of our class knew that ‘the Birds’ were the style icons. They were alone to be credited with the horrendous ideas to turn plain and boring school uniform into fashion week dresses.

‘Happy Birthday funky bones.’ Said Aryan handing me a big present wrapped in a glossy wrapping paper. I can’t believe it. He called me funky bones even today. It’s my birthday dude and I do have a name. Leave it, enough description of my sweet birthday party.

 

It was the last time I celebrated my birthday.

Chapter 1

 

Stories become Legends, when told by worthy people; Tales, when told by elderly people; and History, when told by influential people. But what is the importance of a story told by a girl?, who will be ever interested in a story, told by a girl who hasn’t seen the world much, who hasn’t travelled much, who hasn’t read enough and why would anybody be even listening to what I want to say?

But still I want to tell my story, whether anybody pays heed to it or not; whether anybody listens to or not because that story is inside me, growing day by day, cutting into my soul, hurting me, scorching my insides as if some glass pane has broken inside and now I have to deal with its pieces in my gut. My story is revolting to come out of me, and I want to say it out loud, even if only once.

It is not a legend, nether it is a tale or folklore; it is my story.  My story is for sure a part of history but only in the same sense in which other passing moments are. I am as common a girl as the girl next door but I can tell you things which the girl next door can’t even imagine in her wildest dreams. I have seen, whether you accept it or not, demons inside angels and beasts inside human skin. I have known worlds of terror which you can’t imagine; I have endured pains which nobody can think a girl’s level of tolerance could bear.

I think it is high time to start but beware reader it is not a fairy tale, nor it is a love romance, you can find a little bit of mystery though (but still there are people present or lived on this planet which are much more mysterious than any novel), and yes remember it’s the story of any girl next door. The reader before proceeding further should keep in mind that life is not as beautiful as they show in those romances, and there is no magic possible which can turn Ellas into Cinderellas in a matter of seconds.

So let’s start; I would like to start by introducing myself. I am.......... but there’s a problem in starting and that’s my introduction, if I told you my first name you will certainly try to ascertain my religion, or probably try to attach me to your society or class. I will not tell you the name of my city because I don’t want you to find me, I don’t want to be found out by anybody; I don’t want any publicity. What I only want is to tell my story and for that an introduction is not needed. It’s the story that matters and not my faith or my citizenship.

But still in this vast wide world we recognise our near and dear ones by using a fixed protocol. We recognise them with the help of a word assigned to their faces, which is made by arranging some alphabets in a fixed order later on pronounced as a single unit to call the person to whom it is affixed to. Name.

The handful of people which we know can be classified in groups based on as to what extent we know them? , like there are people who we can be recognised by their voice only, some are recognised by face while there are some others who we recognise by just the smiles which are mutually exchanged. But our witty ancestors who were too clever for their own good, devised a great method to recognise people. Naming.  Nowadays the trend of naming a person goes as far as naming the unborn and unconcieved dream children too. Some scholarly people suggested that we have numbers assigned to prisoners instead of names because naming a person creates a special bond between the name bearer and the one who uses that name to call him/her, but in my opinion it’s not entirely true, for me both the names and the numbers have the same purpose, that is, identification and no kind of affections can be attached to a name unless you don’t love the person whom it is attached to.

Yet in spite of all this we can’t deny the fact that a name is what makes our individuality more individual. So the conclusion is that I need a name to tell my story. I need a set code of alphabets to which you can attach to, cling to and use it to figure out the person you are listening to. Though it not to be my actual name.

So from here on I will start my story and you will get to know one of my names as the story will proceed.

K.Dhanasri or Sri

Chapter 2

 

                  EMERGING NAME IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH POETRY

 

                                   LOSS

 

I was sixteen, when it came to me

I never tried to, but now I loved to be

It was a feeling, I wanted to devour

It was a proof of our love hour

 

I was still sixteen, when I loved him last

I was not prepared, but I was happy at last

My body felt ached, but my soul relieved

Those moments of love, were the best I’ve lived

 

Slowly and gradually, it started to grow

I knew it’s there, moving as she grew

Then came that time, I waited for

It was going to happen, what I waited for

 

It took an hour, and all was over

I was waiting for a cry, as he came over

But everyone went silent, or I went deaf

But instead of it, s/he was born dead

 

I was only sixteen, when it came to me

I was a mother but can’t claim to be

His father (my love), sadly looked at me

His look was soothing, though it hurt me

 

I am twenty one, a grown up now

We are married for two years, he kept his vow

Slowly and gradually, it was again growing

I can feel it inside me, kicking and moving

 

I will for sure, regain my motherhood

I will for sure, regain all that’s good

But what I lost then, was not only my first child

I also lost then, love for the father of this child.

                                                                  -K. Dhanasri

 

Dhanasri is one of my favourite poets of contemporary English poetry. The poem printed above is one of my personal favourite. I’ve read this poem a thousand times since I first saw it in a collection of poems by contemporary poets but every time I read it, it sends chills through my spine same as the first time I read it,