The Death of an Ugly Duckling

As the wet droplets of rainwater fiercely splattered against my face today, I took a step back, while the monsoon infested suburban areas of Mumbai whizzed by me…. then I realised that it was going to be a rare experience… midnight…local train…the rain water wrestling against the wind to enter the lonely ladies compartment and wash against my face… and I stepped forward again, letting the rain caress my cheeks and ruin my brand new khaki bag… like this evening, it was a rare experience… that may never happen again… that I may have avoided but yet wanted to bring upon myself… so the step forward was a choice…
All choices are half chances. Chances on life, on love, on friendship and other such abstract yet definitive bonds that as humans we are entangled with. This evening was an end to a beautiful chapter turned ugly…and end to a part of me that was… the vulnerable, trusting, open me ended. The guarded, sceptical, clamped me was born. This evening was a chance on myself... a chance to hold, a chance to let go… and I took the latter…
I think at the end of the day, we all have the instinct to differentiate between what is bad for oneself and what is not. It is as simple as a diabetes patient knowing that sugar content is bad for him or her…or for an obese one knowing that another bite from that mayonnaise filled burger may mean a step closer to a heart attack…or for the smoker to know that another cigarette means another few minutes of the priceless life snatched away… and yet the paradox lies in the fact that the thing that is bad for you is the one you crave for the most… so can we just pass it off as human behaviour… and then reiterate the helplessness and utter stupidity of the human self?...
Someone once told me that I am a woman of paradoxes… it immediately brought me to my defensive best but then again, today when I think of it, it seems to make perfect sense… I know what’s bad for me and yet like a diabetes patient craves for that sweet, I feel a lack of him and sometimes reach out to that wretched phone to tell him to make things okay and then better sense prevails and my hand involuntarily jerks away from that phone as if it were a dragon waiting to gobble my pride with pleasure. And then I think of the choice that I made, the half chance I took on life… lost yet won… suddenly the rain water hitting my face tasted salty… and unknowingly, a strange contracting feeling of absurd joy seemed to take hold of me while I let the rain wash away my tears… because though this evening was an end to a beautiful chapter turned ugly, it was also an end to a beautiful me that had turned ugly.