A Tale of 2 girls

Yes, I know the title is very misleading (a hi-fi to the adult in you) but its not what you think it is.Today, I would be covering the stories of two girls - different with a capital ‘D’. Yet a lot to learn from both of them.

Lets start with Shanaya. Aah, Shanaya Banerjee. One of the most athletic women I have ever met or had the pleasure to meet. Whenever I met her, she never gave off that typical girl vibe that you get around normal girls. You know the vibe that echoes that girls are so beautiful, delicate and can’t tolerate nuisance, heat, cold, long walks, short walks, etc. (List is too long). But she wasn’t like them. In the whole college, she was one of the very few women to play sports. 

She was a badminton champ. She and some of her friends were always practicing in the college court. Looking at her gave me a complex that being a guy I am not as athletic as her (Sorry for the stereotype, but a complex is a complex). She had entered many inter-collegiate championships and won some of them while ending runners-up on plenty of occasions. And yes, I admit I had a crush on her. She might not give out feminine-vibes but she could turn on the heat when she wanted to with her great dressing sense. 

So, I started talking to her, you know the usual routine. Meet someone, take their no., act all high and mighty and start texting in a few days. We got to know each other and started chatting a lot. I came to know she was part of an NGO and used to do relief work and service activities. I, being an NGO volunteer myself, liked her inclination. Her NGO, though, encouraged her and other volunteers of the NGO to stay clean which meant no alcohol, no drugs, no tobacco and even no non-veg food. She liked to work but she found these rules restrictive. She loved to brag abut working there but she used to break their rules now and then. 

I once started the topic of how I visited bars to hangout with some of my alcohol-friendly friends and how I liked to give them company by having a soft drink for myself. She related to my style but mentioned that she doesn’t mind sipping their alcohol. I asked her why does she do that. Do any of her friends force her to do so or does she have a liking to it? She answered that she wanted to taste every single type of alcohol and then stop completely but more than that, she does it because she is sitting with people who are drinking alcohol which means she has to drink too. Weird Explanation? Oh yes, I was a bit dejected with her for her response but her attitude showed that people go to amazing lengths to make sure that they have friends in life and they fit in and don’t feel isolated.

Now, for the other girl - Shruti Verma. Even her name doesn’t remind me of any great memories with her because she was that dull. And unfortunately, not that good looking (Sorry). I met her during my engineering days and unlike what Chetan Bhagat potrays engineering as, I had a very solitary 4 years (thankfully). I started talking to her from the second day of college when she was sitting in a corner of the room, away from everyone else. My college had a majority of maharashtrians , so she couldn’t mingle much with anyone.

We started speaking and I got to know her background. She was from ICSE board and wanted to pursue Mechanical Engineering. I was an Electronics guy so I knew that even if I befriended her it would be tough to keep in touch. Inspite of that, we started sitting together while attending lectures. Slowly, I got to know that she was a person suffering from very low self esteem and she used to love gaining sympathy from others. That is a quality that I am pretty sure no-one finds attractive. It was annoying to hear her fears of not landing a job in the campus interviews in the final year. There was three years to think about that yet she never let go of that topic. 

Once, while we were moving around in our college canteen, a friend of mine knowingly winked at me and whispered “ Mazze le bhai” (Have fun bro) and I was used to such kind of taunts since high school but Shruti wasn’t. In fact, she was very annoyed that some people are linking us. I never cared about it much but she made a note in her mind to scold the teaser when she gets the chance. I advised her to let it go and take it lightly else they will ridicule her more and as usual she ignored my advice. She used to give people weird looks when people teased her which made them whisper and laugh among themselves.

Any jokes that the guys or the girls made about Shruti were taken with a very bad taste by her. She had very few friends apart from me, because of this reason. I told her to blend in with the crowd at the college and try to fit into other groups by adjusting or making comprises on her way of thought. Students survive college by hanging out with friends and if you are miffed with every single student in the class, there are good chances that you will end up isolated and alone. And that’s what happened, I went my way in second year as I was part of Electronics and I couldn’t keep in touch like before. I saw her many times in her class sitting in a corner talking to no one just because her colleagues weren’t like her. 

This made me realize that there are girls like Shruti who won’t take a single effort to blend in, mix up with the crowd by making a few mundane compromises. And there are girls like Shanaya who will do anything to fit in to a group. Leave no stone unturned in being a part of the ‘gang’.

My advice from these stories is just that please don’t try so hard to make sure you fit into any group while at the same time make sure you don’t drive them away by your inability to make basic compromises. Find your middle ground and draw a line (imaginary) beyond which you wont stoop to mingle with people. This is the age to build your personality and make it a unique one.

(P.S: For those who are wondering what happened to my crush on Shanaya, well unlike Chetan Bhagat we never dated. But I did date someone else, more on that later.)