//”Be-baat khud pe marne lagi hoon
Marne lagi hoon
Bebaak aahein bharne lagi hoon
Bharne lagi hoon
Chaahat ke cheete hai, khaare bhi meethe hai
Main kya se kya ho gayi
Zara zara fitrat badalne laga dil mera
Zara zara kismat se ladne laga dil mera.”//
-Pareshaan by Shalmali Kholgade
An apology to the world:
I deserve someone who makes me happy, someone who understands how I think.
Not someone who is good with just the word SORRY, and finally, after years I learnt that that someone was me!
I think it’s all that I have lost that has set me free.
For the first time, I feel freedom.
I felt the freedom of creating my own wind as I ran through that field; the very place you told me that I wasn't good enough.
I wasn't ever going to be enough!
Not as pretty, not as smart, not as nice and not as tough.
You showed me what you thought an ideal life was and told me to work towards it,
but the second i got closer to it, you snatched it away.
I have realised that I am worth more than my second thoughts and maybes.
I might still be a work in progress and imperfect, some might say.
But isn’t there beauty in imperfection?
I am falling in love with the process of becoming the best version of myself.
As a teenager it is not easy, we relentlessly try to make someone else happy,
changing the way we look and act to fit into the army of clockwork soldiers we call society.
But if I have the power to make changes in the world, why would I want to be anyone else?
At first I was weary, not sure who to be, because what they call self love, they also label as vanity.
But then, I started keeping the promises that I had made to myself and did not allow anyone to stand in the way of becoming the best version of myself.
The love now has me drowning in its rain.
Even though these drops are tainted by the bitterness of your soul, they are still as sweet as a song.
The song that led me down a different path and had me facing the rough waters of fate.
The true beauty of self love is acceptance.
I didn’t just look past them, I accepted them.
I wouldn’t be complete without them.
I found serenity in the broken pieces of my heart.
The moment I chose to stop being my own enemy, is the moment the war in my mind ended.
So, I am sorry world.
I am sorry for defying your ways, for breaking through the shackles that caused me nothing but misery.
For escaping from the prison of your habromania.
For long I had whelved myself in the play you orchestrated, with me as your mere puppet.
But I am not confined any longer and I will not apologize for being myself.
I will not apologise for embracing myself and expressing the orenda that’s within me.
Author: Charu Sabharwal and Nathania Do Rego
Editor: Alekhya Gahilot