Imperfectly Perfect
Stories of the not so perfect me
Surviving and thriving my school years
Everybody around me remembers my school years as that of an obedient girl, finishing her homework on time, studying by herself , always doing the right thing, never missing a day of school, completing self study of the entire course in summer vacation, topping the class and her teachers favourite.
While I was all of this, I was also a lot more. Many hidden stories that are known only to me.
I want to share these stories where I was far from perfect. Stories filled with mischief , lies and small acts of defiance. Stories that help normalise imperfection for me. Stories that remind me of many layers that make me. Stories that remind you, my readers, of the many colors of your own childhood.
A Pagal Big sister
I am in the first class. It’s a Sunday. My parents are just done forcing me to have my breakfast. I have sneaked out and completed my ritual of feeding the trees- after all they need their daily dose of milk more than I do. I rush then to my friends house. She stays in the same building , top floor. They are three sisters, she being the youngest. Her house is very warm and welcoming. I love spending time with her. I swiftly make my way to their bedroom. It’s our play room too. We are excited to gather katoris, chammachs and start playing ghar ghar. We have also borrowed her mothers orange dupatta.
As we are setting up , her mom says
“ Tittu , paratha kaun khaega” “Titttu… sunti nahi hai ye ladki” .
Tittu is very annoyed “mummy always has to call at the wrong time, you sit I will come back in just 5 min”
So now it’s me on the bed with our set up. I sit and wait. I am bored by now. Very bored. There is a table in the room. I decide to do a survey. I see that on this table with white lacy table cloth, there are multiple note books nicely covered in brown paper. All of them also have names written on it.
I read it out “ Indu Bala Patel”.
I see a pencil next to it. Without thinking a lot I decide to write…. On the note book…. Completing the name which now reads “ Indu Bala Patel PAGAL”. The suffix has been added by yours truly in pencil. I do this one by one for each of the 6 notebooks. I then get back to completing the set up and covering myself and my head in the orange dupatta . My friend joins me and we spend the next few hours making meals and serving the guests in our play kitchen.
Indu, Tittu’s eldest sister ( and a PAGAL as per her notebook) enters the scene. She is looking for something on the table . I am observing her slyly .” Will she notice…no no she won’t” and suddenly “ mummy…….mummmy…. Tittu has written something on my notebook…come here…. Oh my god it’s on all of them….Tittu ki bachchi fir mera cover kharaab kar diya…. “
Tittu is as shocked as Indu. She is profusely denying these grave charges. Her mummy comes and threatens Tittu. Tittu continues to repeat that she is innocent. In the chaos I add “ Tittu badi Didi hai…. Pagal thode na hai… kyun likha”
As the situation intensifies I look for a chance to escape.
Next evening I hear her mom talk to mine “ See what she did with her elder sister…she needs to learn from Khushboo(me)….what a sweet girl!
After all , they all loved me for being the perfect girl !
Fridge ate the icecream
I had been dreading this day for last 3 months. This evening my parents finally remembered the 3 ice cream bricks in the freezer. Today was a good day to have some ice cream they thought. Mummy gathered 4 small steel bowls. She opens the freezer , sees the orange and white cardboard icecream boxes. She also notices there is some creamy liquid all around. She pulls out this boxes with some difficulty as they are stuck with the liquid. And then….all she finds is just remnants of some liquid in each one.
She worriedly calls my father …. “See what happened, we shouldn’t have kept it for so long , it has melted fully looks like…there is nothing left”
I on the other hand, was observing everything closely like a hawk. I was relieved at my mom’s conclusion. Every day since I saw these ice cream boxes land in our fridge, I would hope for elders in the house to offer it to me. When it didn’t happen for long, I decided to take matters in my own hands. So every afternoon little by little, some of it would come out and be relished by me. I was also a smart girl , so I would boil milk with sugar for sometime and then put it in the same cardboard box . Nicely packed up again to sit in the fridge. By the end of it , the milk had flooded the fridge, the cardboard boxes lost shape.
Obviously the fridge ate the icecream as I never could , being the perfect girl I was.
There is never too much room freshener
I can hear my uncle shout angrily at my cousin in the next room. My cousin is visiting. He is known to be a mastikhor. So when my uncle finds that more than half of his new sandalwood room freshner , a transparent bottle has disappeared in just 2 days, he knows who has done it.
My cousin tries his best to justify. “Humne dekha bhi nahi hai bottle ko” Despite these attempts, he has been schooled now by everyone in the house. Including me.
I remember 2 days ago I entered by Bua’s room and found this fancy looking bottle. It had a crystal cover. I could see the brownish liquid inside and something like a nozzle on top. I pressed it once, I liked what happened. I repeated the act several times over, I had now made a song and a dance move. I would keep the nozzle pressed and groove with my own music. It was so much fun .
No body ever would check on me. I was afterall the perfect girl
The door that doesn’t open
It’s 10 am. Last period before the recess. We are all nicely seated at our desks. This wasn’t the case just 5 min back. I had led a group of students together with me to push and close the classroom door. This door once closed would open with great difficulty. The swelled up wood would push against the floor surface making most unpleasant of noises.
Why then did we decide to close it? It’s exactly the same reason as why I decided to empty the room freshner bottle or make Pagal out of my friend’s sister.
To tell you the truth, I loved the smile of triumph that Brij Mohan sir would have when he finally managed to push and open the door.
He was the kindest soul , our Hindi teacher, with a physique so thin that probably I weighed more than him even when I was all of 10 years old. He carried a “choti” on his head which added to his charm.
Every day without fail at 9:58, we would run towards the class room door and push it so that it’s completely shut. Every day at 10:01 our beloved Brij Mohan sir would push with all his strength to open this nasty door. Every day at 10:03 he would manage to open it enough to just get his head in , peak in to the classroom and give us his widest grin. A smile so endearing that would make us do this everyday.
As the class ended today, I went to submit my homework. He tells me softly “ Chetna, aap thoda ye shararti bachchon ko samjhao, kyun roz darwaza band karte hain” “ haan sir, bahut galat baat hai”
I smiled as I hurried back to my desk, how do I tell him that I am not the perfect girl he has come to trust!
I feel lighter just penning these stories down. It’s a guilt that I carried for long.
Strangely enough, these memories are from my early childhood, over time I did become what I was always assumed to be.
The perfect girl who could do no wrong.
I carry this burden all along as I try to base my identity on this myth of perfectionism.
I have to be the prefect daughter, wife, employee, leader to my team. And somewhere in this, I stop being a perfect friend to my own self.
Oh so nice…your daughter is so bright
She studies day and night
Always does what’s right
Perfection is her might
Oh no oh no oh no
I am as flawed as any of you
Allow me space to grow
And failures to know
That it’s ok not be perfect
I wrote this as part of a writing workshop with
and . I highly recommend the workshop, sharing the next workshop schedule.