Aparna Shukla

This picture was taken when I was two years old. I chose this photograph particularly, because it defines the relationship with my sister perfectly. She was always the sensible one,whereas I, the careless. Here in the picture, she's neatly folding my clothes and placing one on the other to make an organised pile. While I, on the other hand, am trying to throw them on the floor, for "order" irritated me from the very beginning. The peculiarity of this photograph lies in what happened after it was taken. I did something bizarre and landed up in the hospital. What happened was, my father was making 'Gol Gappas', and for some reason he had made heaps of red chili powder and turmeric powder. I was awestruck by how beautiful the red and yellow "mountains" looked. As I watched, a small piece of plastic flew from somewhere and sat right on the red chili 'mountain'. I distinctly remember how I thought that the plastic piece is ruining the beauty of the red mountain and so, I blew on the plastic piece and all the chili went inside my eyes. Rest is history. Well, so much for curiosity.

Never did I think that this flower arrangement, at the back of my high-school slam-book, would one day, define me.The flowers are dried up, the leaves are withered. The ends are broken and the petals are scarred. Still, astonishingly enough, the colors look magnificent. The beauty of the flower is somehow more than that of a fresh, unharmed flower in a protected garden. After years of lying at the back of my closet, alone and unnoticed, the beauty remains untouched. Similarly, all my life, whatever I've done, wherever I've been, I've never let anyone or anything change my core and conscience. I've let the storm pass and made the scars, the rough roads and dark tunnels to wisdom. For me, scars are the signs of struggle. I take pride and hope that someday, someone will discover me, from the back of a closet and realize what I did today.

This is how picture myself in ten years. Rich enough, single enough and independent enough to take a trip to nowhere. Take a sabbatical, go get a degree in a design school, dance with tribes, open a bakery. own a music label, launch an album of my originals, witness a miracle, save a life. Have a liberty to close my eyes and pick a country at random. Hop on a plane with no plans in mind. Eat wild food. Talk to complete strangers. Learn a  new language and just do everything that are my "first times". Yes. That probably sums it up.