No book can teach you this

The only daughter of not too ill-to-do parents, I have always lived with some kind of sense of kingdom. I always had a room of my own with its very own bathroom. I always had a life-time privilege card, which entitled me to get almost whatever I wanted, maybe not whenever I wanted it, but I got it eventually. I never thought twice where everyday things were concerned. It just felt like they were always there. Things like washing machine, cars, toothpaste and all.

Imagine my plight when I had to live with other people in a paying guest accommodation while in college. My mom with good intentions left me with a family where I was given a separate room with my own bathroom and everything. I stayed there for over a year and then decided to stay at a place closer to my college. That’s when I came, inevitably, face-to-face, with life!

Proud that I was all by myself now, first thing I ventured into was to go shopping for the everyday ordinary things. I didn't have to use the home-prescribed soaps and paraphernalia any more. I was to lead my life in my own terms, and I was going to do anything not to follow the ordinary. My own terms sure, but I was to use their money.

I bought Crest, it cost me maybe 10 times more than Colgate but, I wanted to use it. My soap was either Neutrogena or Bodyshop. My loofah was hand-made, one of the best by Clinique. Everything I bought that day were products straight out of either Vogue or Elle. Boy, I still remember, it was raining that day, but it was sunshine inside me. With my newly attained wealth and a lot of damage to my parents’ account, I went to my room, which I was sharing with two other girls and started arranging.

I needed to brush my teeth at night and just then I realised, I forgot to buy a toothbrush. I never had to so it never crossed my mind. Then there was no mug and no bucket to take bath with. There was no shower in the bathroom and damn, I never thought that washing soap was of any use at all. I was sure everyone was facing this problem, being an optimist. So I went t to buy some more provisions. The best bucket, the best mug, the best towels and RIN (By best I mean what I thought was best among my choices).

When I came back, one of the girls wanted to know if she could use my shampoo. My Wella shampoo!! None had ever used my shampoo. Would it be too shallow to think like that? What my parents had taught about sharing, had it gone for waste? That thought made me give in and someone used my shampoo for the first time. Shampoo I would not lend my mom!

Then as days progressed, each time my roomie looked at me, forget look, so much as glanced at me, I used to cringe, what does she want now. She was placed very strategically by God to teach me how to give. Because in life, give you must! But give to the needy, the poor, and the underprivileged. Giving it to some slug who was too lazy and too stingy to go and buy stuffs for herself.. It was unfair! And suddenly, life was not all fair! That’s why we had the needy and the poor in the first place.

Life went on, till then I had never much thought of life. It was a smooth sail, but I was struggling now and realizing that such is life after all. Give, give and give. Then I started introspecting because as a child I had heard someone say that life is about giving and taking. But I wasn't taking anything. But as I thought, I realised that I was taking but not from the same girl that I was giving so many things to. I was taking from my parents. Uncomfortable thought. So I decided not to think at all.
My mom told me, when I called her to complain about life that every morsel had a name on it. And my shampoo was not mine anymore. Like everything else, it had a name on it. And the name was not mine.

One new girl joined three months later and she forgot to get a bed sheet along. The Bombay Dyeing, which I had saved for summer had her name on it. So I gave. Except money, I never borrowed anything from anyone but I made good friends with good people, lazy people, tardy people, dirty people and great people. All these lending a certain colour to life and teaching me things I would never have learnt otherwise.

Living with others teaches you so many things, tolerance being the best thing you will ever learn.

It’s been 8 years since then, I work now, use my own money now, have the knowledge that tooth paste and brush go hand in hand, to keep socks in place one had to be put into another and broke does not mean poor! I have a roomie from Hyderabad, just out of the clutches of her home, quietly and slowly learning things which I have already mastered.

For me life is like Candid Camera, just when you are all angry and frustrated, they ask you to look straight ahead and smile!