I Am A Girl, Not The Flesh Part 12
Gita had been an early riser, and all her friends knew it well. She woke up at her usual time and, after the morning routine, sat at the table with her glass of milk and bread. I was still looking at the diary gifted by Sudeshna. She had been working on this diary for the past fortnight and had penned down a lot of incidents and thoughts. She even spoke to Prerna about what she wrote about the long day spent between them. As she was reading what she wrote, her phone rang.
It was Prerna from Indore. She had settled there after retirement. Her mother died a couple of years ago. She wanted to adopt a child, but the law was not clear about adoption by a single mother, so she had become a foster mother to two children, whose mother was working in her house as a maid, and their father had died. Prerna's time was busy with her foster children, teaching them, guiding them. They were also happy with her.
Gita:- Hello Prerna, how are you?
Prerna:- Hello Gita, I am fine. How are you?
Gita:- I am fine dear. I was just thinking about you and reading the story about our meeting, which I told you I am writing.
Prerna:- I was also thinking about that and the way you wrote it. Frankly, I always appreciated your language and control over words and sentences, the way you wrote official notings, but never thought you could use that in literature also.
Gita:- Oh no dear, I do not think I am into literature. But it is mixed emotions when I am reliving the events. Why don't you join me too?
Prerna:- Me? But you know, whenever I think of my life, I always start at a positive point. I was my father's girl. I remember he used to take me to many of his friends, even when my mother insisted on my staying at home, he would take me with him somehow. And he used to introduce me as his girlfriend. Especially at around the age of 10, I remember he called me 'girlfriend' in the family gatherings. I was very fortunate to have him, and more unfortunate, to have lost him even before reaching the age of 20. But he built me, injected in me his character of attainment and understanding.
Gita:- Yes, Prerna, it is said that the Father is the best friend of a girl because he is the only man in the world who will not hurt his daughter.
Prerna:- That is true, but for me, I was fortunate in meeting another person who was just like my father. After the death of my father, he stood like a saviour warrior with me, with us, with our family. He was so affectionate that at one stage I started calling him Papa Ji, a call different from my father, whom I used to call Babu ji.
Gita:- Then I will say that you owe the world to know about the good characters also. Whenever we discuss treatment meted out to us, it is always the bad events that attract our attention. I will be very interested in knowing this part of your life.
Prerna:- Why not Gita, will send you a note on this today itself.
Gita:- Okay Prerna, I will wait for the note. And bye for the time being. Have a nice day.
Prerna:- I am not saying bye because I will come back to you shortly.
Gita kept the phone. She had been taking her breakfast simultaneously and finished the same. She received the email from Prerna by the evening, and she added the entire story, with credit to Prerna.
Start of Prerna
I was born in the family of a fighter Dad. He was a unique person in his days, and I lost everything when God came to our home to take him forever at an early age.
He was my friend, my guide, my Dad, my playmate in my games. There were indeed others in the family who had other ideas when the eldest child was a daughter. My Dad was overjoyed, as he told me many times, to have a daughter as his first child. He used to say that when he brought me home from the Nursing Home in a taxi, the taxi driver told him that he would have asked for at least Rs 500 had it been a son. My father paid him Rs 500 as tips, saying the girl was going to be his introduction. At times, I did feel that my mother was not that happy, but it was not a dominant feeling in those days. Late in life, yes, I confess, I do feel that she would have been happier in having her first child as a son.
Well, it was something I did not know and did not affect me in any manner. But there were others at times who used to come, chat in our house, and sometimes say, 'How fine it would have been if you had been a boy'. I used to get angry at them and used to tell them that I can fight like boys, so I am a boy.
I was very happy, but realised the stress on some elders because I was a daughter when my mother became pregnant again. I was in my sixth year at that time. Yes, my brother was quite younger than me, but at times, the conversation will start in the house on the probable sex of the new child, and Dad will always leave the conversation by taking me out, on his shoulder, or just holding my hand.
He was a person who never made me feel that I was weaker or needed any security. I remember an incident faintly.
I was studying in class 3 or so and had my exam for arithmetic the next day. It was a Sunday, and Dad took me out on a stroll just after breakfast, but that stroll continued for quite a long time. We had some ice cream, etc, at the park and came back home only when it was lunchtime.
However, during this time, he was explaining to me my arithmetic, and I felt as if he explained the entire course that my teacher had taught in that short time. He was very fast in mental mathematics and used to teach me that just verbally, without any paper or pen, only through examples of live things around.
When we came home, Mother was furious. She asked me to take a bath, and then took me inside the bedroom and started talking about lots of things, scolding me continuously. Though I did not understand too much but scolding I disliked being scolded, and resultantly, I was crying for the full hour. I do not remember what she was telling, but I remember she was repeatedly using 'don't forget you are a girl' and "you have an exam tomorrow and don't have the sense that you are wasting time strolling like street urchins."
She was continuously speaking and I was crying, when, after some time, which seemed to be an entire day at that time to me, though it might have been half an hour, Dad came into the room, furious like I had not seen him.
He picked me up in his arms and shouted, "She is not a normal girl, she is my daughter and my son, and she was not wasting her time. You can learn mathematics from her, what I have taught her. Don't ever try to scold her if she had been with me."
I remember, when I reached my 16th Birthday, he told me he would give me a present nobody would ever be able to give me in my life. For me, he was the hero, and I did not think too much, except expecting something extraordinary.
We never knew that he had expertise in writing. And on the morning of my birthday, he presented a poem to me, printed and bound in a photo frame. That has been an invaluable treasure for me. I carry that with me always.
I could feel safe in his arms. Later, somewhere, I read a quote, A Girl is safest in the arms of her father. A girl's first boyfriend is her father, and he is the best.
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