‘Yeh, Janvi ke Papa hai!’
Everyone knows the stories we choose to tell about ourselves
the ones that are always at the tip of our tongues, the ones we love to regale
new friends with, at the fun parties, the ones our long standing friends have
heard dozens of times …but what of the stories, we never tell, the ones that
are buried so deep under the shame and denial and years of trying to forget,
the ones we quickly dismiss when brought by a friend with a unwelcoming smile?
Here is my, such story of ‘self shame’ which till date, was
only my possession and now it’s even your!
Chapter -1
1)
IIPM
2)
PDPU
3)
Nirma
University
4)
H.L.
5)
B.K.M.I.B.A
6)
GLS
7)
Atmiya
8)
Christ
college
9)
J.H.Bhalodia
…my eyes were rolling down to the list of around 50 colleges
from all over the India which were taking part in ‘Intellectus-2014’ organized
at H.L. college of Commerce, Ahmedabad.
Small drops of perspiration immediately appeared on my
forehead as I was reading the list.
Before reaching to the climax of the long list, I felt an
urge to visit the washroom, in a fraction of a second my mountain like
confidence just evaporated like hot water. After all, this is the same event
which I faced the last year and wherein I was removed like an unwanted pebble
in the Preliminary round of the competition itself.
I was about to move towards the washroom when I heard the tap
of someone’s sandal on the off white floor.
With curiosity I craned my head back and I could see a girl walking on
the lane opposite to mine, cell phone glued to the right ear, open neck length
hairs, bright white formal shirt, imperial blue skin tight pants which was
embossing her panty on her small round bumps.
I was scanning her
further when I heard her say …‘Ya! Papa the event starts with in..’
‘Papa’ …I aimlessly repeated in my mind and with this I
rewind my life’s cassette almost 11 years back in a single nanosecond.
Chapter -2
A small drop of sweat was moving down from my spine. I was starring
at my unpolished school shoes and those off –white socks whose rubber was aged
and lose and so the socks were sleeping at my ankles.
My turn to answer was about to come when I fixed my worried
eyes on the lady standing in the center of our class with a blue
Salwar-kameez-dupatta, her loose dress was showcasing her bald chest, while her
hairs were recently hennaed and were tied in a messy pig tail at her back, she
wore green colored slippers which were truly a mismatch to her attire.
I wanted to quit the situation and run away. With this
feeling I pressed my boy cut hairs lying open on my head.
‘My name is Priya Sharma. My hobby is drawing and my father
is a teacher.’ Spoke the girl sitting on
my right side with her hands tied at her back.
My heart started racing , my ears turned red, my senses went
dumb, my body went cold, the hands hanging on my sides were shivering at a
slower speed, some ugly unknown thing started happening in my stomach…but
finally I stood up to answer.
‘My name is Janvi Sonaiya. My hobby is reading. And my father
is a …’ I took a never ending pause with my eyes looking down.
‘Hey Janvi, speak the profession of your father!’ instructed
the lady teacher after tolerating my long pause.
I remained silent. My classmates sitting at my back started
passing some comments, I couldn’t hear or I didn’t want to hear.
‘Look class, a girl studying in 4th std. is
unaware about her father’s profession?! What a shame!’ Our new teacher exclaimed and made her
eyeballs to pop out.
Still, I pressed my
lips together and didn’t answer. I could sense Priya signaling me to speak up
with her eyes. ‘Dhruv’ sitting on a bench parallel to mine, was making faces
and I gave him a look of ‘Bachu-I-will-see-you-after-the-school’
with a harassed frown, suddenly I felt that nothing here is familiar except my own
stuck up self.
Almost all the students were staring at me, may be waiting
for my answer. Huh! Not answering a question can make you a celebrity
overnight!
Not wasting her time on me, she moved to the girl sitting
next to me with disapproving eyes .
I flew into a fierce wind of thoughts.
Ma’am, how to tell you; before the class that …I know my
father’s occupation. Actually that is the problem!
I sat on the bench and placed my head down and framed it with
my hands. Few tears escaped from my innocent, immature eyes. And I kept
thinking …How I couldn’t answer that …”Ma’am, I am Janvi Sonaiya. My hobby is
reading. And my father has business of fodder, oh! Khod-kapasiya I mean.
Something that cow eats!”
The whole lecture I kept my head down and cried without any
concrete reason as if her question unleashed a verbal assault!
‘Janvi, do you really feel ashamed of your father’s
occupation!??’
This thought and this
incident haunted me till several years …until one day , when I came to terms
with my reality.
Chapter -3
My fingers were playing with a strand of my curly –fizzy open
hairs. I was thoughtlessly lying on my bed with my eyes fixed on the fan,
moving right above me.
‘Hey, Bhagvan…!’ with this I stood up from my bed like a boomerang,
moving towards my desk with a hurried pace.
‘The Government is
giving you scholarship for your 12 th score …and you dumb girl, not even
bothered to fill its form!’
Taking the form out of my rugged college bag, I started
hunting for a pen inside my new brown college bag… covered books, uncovered
rough books, tit-bits of paper, chocolate rappers, pen caps, lip gloss, hair
comb, a lidless borrowed pencil, a
Sidney Sheldon’s novel, a orphan like hair clip…uff! I found everything in my
bag except pen.
With this leaving my futile effort to get a pen, I just
started glancing at the form while my hand was still making knots in my curly
hairs. I could witness creases on the right side of the form as I had
carelessly placed it in my bag.
First name, Fathers Name, Surname, Date of birth, Percentage
…I was aimlessly reading the contents in the form when my heart stopped at a
threshold.
Father’s occupation
Father’s education
Mothers Occupation
Mother’s education
…these words stung me like a poisoned dart. After all, Small things for some people are
big things for other people.
The form suddenly
seemed ugly to me. Few questions knocked few unopened doors of my life. The
more I tried to run away from reality, the more it bulled me.
Few crease lines of concentration arrived on my forehead.
It is all bullshit…is it necessary to tell everyone that my
dad is 12 th fail and mom 10 th pass!’
Reality sucks!!
With this some wrong
chemical reaction took place inside me, making me flung that form away and
turning my mood to: Airplane mode!
Jumping on my bed, I just unloaded my body on its smooth
spo
nch material. I was thoughtlessly lying on my bed with my eyes fixed on the
fan, moving right above me.
*********
You know what, all this has happened to me time and again
once while I had participated in the ‘Interview Facing’ competition, Christ
college, Rajkot; I remember the interviewer asked me as whether growing up I
would like to join my father’s business or not and I went blank, he further
asked me regarding my father’s business and I drifted into tears and answered
his answered question only when my tears dried up!
No matter, inspite of such emotional outburst I did win in
that competition!
Chapter- 4
I was in the rest room, the competition was about to begin in
half an hour. Several girls around me were muttering their book review
speeches. But I unlike them keep the last moments for 3 things: drinking water,
going to washroom and most importantly motivating myself.
Coming to the wash basin to wash my face, I glanced at my
face in the mirror opposite to me.
Unplucked eyebrows, a bit of hairs on upper lips and those
ugly hairs on my face sides! That was I. The preparations for this book review
were so intent on my mind that visiting beauty parlor just drifted off my
mind.
‘You Bhalu girl!’
‘Janvi, this is not the time to tease thy self, it’s time to
test your inner self!’
I was actually scared and no monologues with myself were
working and so I was just cluelessly glancing at my eyes…those brown watery
pools…and this pair of eyes took me to those days where I hadn’t visited since
eons…
Random thoughts ran around in my head. And out of these
random thoughts, some coherent day were emerging…
Those days when my parents chose a ‘Loud speaker’ to be my
best friend while I was merely a girl of 1st standard. Those days,
when English was an alien language to my parents and still going against the
other family members of our joint family, my parents shifted me from a Gujarati
to an English medium school from my 2nd standard. Those days when my
father used to plead English teachers of our village just to come up with a
script for my speeches. Those days when my mom used to go to a nearby aunty who
was well-off in English language and she used to translate those scripts into
Gujarati so that it becomes easy for mom to train me for the same. (“My name is
Janvi “was written as “Mayy naim eizz janvi’). Those days when my mom used to
learn English everyday from one of her friends, just to teach me the same at
night. Those days when the simplest act of writing ‘Little Star English Medium
School’ on the front page of my notebook was a feeling of pride for my mom…
********
‘..xcuse me!’
‘Oh, hello?’ …I faintly heard this voice when I was slowly
switching to the ‘Reality’ mode.
A girl with blond hairs and skinny body was standing beside
me with sense of emergency to use the washbasin which was aimlessly occupied by
me.
I moved back to my bag and grabbed the light brown colored
book placed on it named ‘Onion Tears’ , I looked at it for a minute ,I then
pressed it to my chest and closed my eyes for a fraction of seconds . I
entrusted myself of the fact that I am a book lover and I am aware with the DNA
of my chosen novel for the Book Review Competition; no matter my competitors
had chosen extremely respected books such as ‘Inferno’, ‘India Unbound’, ‘The
girl with a dragon Tattoo’, ‘A thousand splendid suns’,’Connect the dots’,
‘Doctor ni diary’ and so on…
Chapter- 5
I was sitting in the central auditorium and I felt that for
others it was just a competition but for me it was the time to prove my worth
…many people have invested in me and I had to prove them right. My heart was
racing at an unusual speed, I was gulping water continuously out of sheer
nervousness, inspite of the air conditioner I was feeling the heat inside my
black shirt, my chance was about to come when I felt an urge to visit washroom
again…and thereby I hugged my novel ‘Onion tears’ which was my only companion there,
took a deep breath , adjusted my specs…and just spoke ‘Dad!’ with a low voice!!
And the next participant
is with the college code ‘V2’ i.e. Janvi Sonaiya.
Hearing this I stood up with a brave heart, I was carrying my
novel in my left hand and a mike in the other hand…like a lioness I scanned the
audience and started with the lines..
‘A wonderfulll noon to one and all present here..Well, myself
is..’ I started with an intention to
make the audience listen something they never heard, see something which they
never saw before…after all, that day it wasn’t Janvi who was speaking but it
was the efforts of those uncounted years of her parents’ efforts that were
setting the stage on fire!
Epilogue
Filmo ki tarah hamari zindgi main bhi, happyzz endingzz hote hai…aur
agar ending happy na ho..to picture abhi baki hai mere dost!! But my picture
was getting accomplished there, after losing the competition once…this time I
stood first. The black ‘Inellectus-2014’ trophy was placed in my hand and that
was not just a symbol of victory that was a signature of the fact that ‘No
matter how your parents are, they can still make you a winner!’
I moved ahead with that trophy …from that event and also from
that guilt, that shame which always encircled me. I then thought with a goofy
face ‘the mother of my kids will be ‘Janvi’ …how lucky of them!!’
After that day, that event, that accepted reality …I vowed
myself to bring
a day when people will say ‘Yeh, Janvi ke Papa hai!’
My belief will change my world!
From Janvi’s honey bag.
Many people may be
sharing the same fate as mine and may be brave enough to live with it but there
will be kids who are like me ,finding it hard to digest the reality to all of
them I would just say: ‘Accept the fact
and half the battle is won.’ (Tried and Tested!)
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Suggestions, views,queries or anything you wish to share at ‘janvisonaiya@gmail.com’.
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