Fairy Tales

     The first story that I can remember being read to me was Little Red Riding Hood. Little girls, all three would sit on her father's knee, wide-eyed with wonder, listening.

' Go to sleep, my angel, I'll read the rest of the story out to you tomorrow, otherwise, Wee Willie Winky come and get you. He doesn't like children who are up past their bedtime, my father would say. I would shudder at the thought of horrid Wee Willie Winky and then fall asleep thinking of Red Riding Hood and her beautiful brown basket full of goodies, her polished black shoes, her oh-so-pretty dress, her light brown hair, and rosy cheeks.....

'Wake up, sleepyhead. Today I'm going to tell you the story about a magic golden dragon.' 'Really? Where does it live, Baba?' 'Oh, it lives here, but you cant see it. It is afraid of human beings, so it won't appear in front of you. But you know the Golden Dragon loves broccoli. If you don't finish yours, it'll eat it all up.' Gobble......Gobble.....Gobble......, and voila! There would be no broccoli left on my plate. Another time, Baba told me that fairies danced with the gobline in the moonlight and that toadstools were actually meant for their tea parties. I felt deprived after listening to these tales - why couldn't I be as small as them?

So you see this was the clever ploy employed by Baba to make sure I did exactly what I supposed to. He never yelled at me but merely spun yards and yards of magical tales... tales that I was enthralled by.

    I grew up in a huge house, one of the few remaining ancestral mansions. As a result, there were big palm trees that swayed to the breeze and big banyan trees.

   The house had been built by my great grandfather and some part of it were so dilapidated that you couldn't even imagine living there. There were cobwebs on the wall; lizards, bats, squirrels, and even snakes roamed all over the place. But this is what made my growing -up years magical and full of mystery. There was a hidden tunnel in my bathroom which led to a small room. From the moment I discovered it, I wanted to shut myself in it, away from the world. I would seek solace in that small room. During one such phase of seclusion, I wrote a poem :

Dream on, you silly child, it shall not last.
What stories you have been told
of far, far away? Dragon, Unicorn, Magic wands....
What will happen when you know
that they don't exist? What do you do, when you realize
that your whole life has been
a finely woven web of lies? Simple lies that you were told
so that you would not cry.
You cried nevertheless ...
You cried aloud when your peacock died...
and also when the sun didn't shine when you wanted it to.
Was it worth it?
Was it worth telling you stories that would silence
you momentarily
but haunt you till the end of time?
In retrospect, this made me wonder.. had I become a cynic? Had the fact that my parents told me so many stories affected me so deeply that when harsh reality looked me in the eye. I couldn't deal with it? It took me a while to distinguish between fiction and reality. How could fairy tales be my reality?

And then Baba told me something that I will never forget.' My angel, it is what you choose to believe in, that makes all the difference. Have faith, belief and everything will become crystal clear.'

I'm eighteen now, struggling with the pressures of everyday life and learning new things with each passing day. But what I know for  sure is that you believe in makes you who you are. So never stop believing.  And never stop having faith in yourself. I know I never will.