Reservations about being reserved!

I always marvel at how different each one of us is. Things that seem extremely easy for some become the most difficult for others. Simple things that make life easier only seem to get complicated with some of us. Like I cannot pick up the phone and ask for assistance. Be it a computer guy to repair my PC or a prospective employer to get a job. It just doesn’t happen. I usually don’t walk up to people to chat with them. I linger around in corners at parties (which I rarely attend) while I know some people who can walk into a room and make everyone feel that they know him/her. They can chat with people across ages, classes, races and languages. They can get their work done because they have the gift of the gab.

My forte, as is visible, is writing. I can write. Anything. Everything. Communication to me was born with writing. I have always admired people who can express themselves well. Be it with words or only through gestures. Often I have stood at bus stands looking at deaf and mute children communicate with their hands and laugh. I haven’t heard such pure laughter anywhere else. The entire world seems abnormal when they talk. They are oblivious of everyone around them. I often imagined that life must be so tough for them. But then I also understood that they were communicating. In spite of not being “gifted” enough, they expressed themselves. Whereas someone like me, who could speak, would rather write! That’s why I marvel at how different we are.

But I also have understood that each one of us has a place. We just need to know that. Everyone wants us to conform. To fit in a mould. To be like everyone else. And it isn’t as if we don’t try. But it’s a just a fact that we are different. And as Amitabh Bachchan says in Black, “Be proud to be different.” Its difficult. Not to belong. To be the odd person out. To be looked down upon. To be stared at as queer. To be always introduced as “So she is one of the shy types. The reserved one you know!”

But then we shine. On our own. Envying the ones who can talk and be the light of the parties. And also knowing we can never be like them. And ….. they can never be like us.