SHACKLES TO GRACE

 Arre hello ji Namaste, how’s 2021 going?

Sab badhiya?

Kya kya soch ke 2020 ki shuruat ki thi…

 

Kiya thha na type whatsapp par-

“May this year bring joy and happiness in everyone’s lives…….blah blah…—”

 

 

Aur corona was like

 

 

Aur khajoor, what’s up?

 

Khajoor- “kuch nahi yaaar….sirf *boredom*……. Accha waise how was your year though?”

My year. Huh.

 🤮                                                                                                                     

Nahi matlab kya batau ab main tujhe.

Kuchh accha hua bhi hai iss saal mein?

Matlab, now see.

January toh started ekdum acche se. Whatsapp pe copy-paste wale New Year messages, group pe *lavaris* forwards, and well, you know the rest.

Now, ughhhh…I won’t even talk about the next 2 months,

Kyun?

 

10th Boards thhe yaaar!

 

L-O-T-S of things happened after that.

Chalo, let’s start.

Firstly, Corona ki dhamakedaar entry       *padharo sa playing in the background*

Phir lockdown ke Rohit Shetty se badh kar sequels.

Police started playing PUBG in real life, and people started vibing at ‘go corona, corona go’

Instagram flooded with dalgona coffee, aur hairdressing ka talent ubhar ke bahar aaya.

 

Khajoor- “Ek-ek-ek minute, tune bhi banayi thi na dalgona coffee?”

 Me: 

😐

 

Well.

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We lost many precious people;  celebreties, players as well as people in personal life.

Binod and ‘Rasode mein kaun tha’ entertained us,                 

But PUBG ke ban se aadha bharat roya.

[ FAU-G laughing in the corner tho]

 

But not with TIKTOK, bro!

Nahi nahi…. Tiktok ke ban ne dil khush kar diya bhai.

(No offence to people in favour of Tiktok, it was just a joke! J )

 

Khajoor- “bro ho gaya tera timepass? Kaam ki baat karegi?”

 

 

 

(Bass memes ka sahara hai aajkal)

 

At the same time, we felt entrapped and suffocated, caged in our own homes. It literally ate us from the inside. We missed our close ones, and for some, unfortunately lost them too. We were choked with hundreds of concurrent emotions and felt incapacitated for the first time ever.

Let me tell you. This year was a tough one for you, personally too.  A kid, teen or an adult. What not have you faced this year…

Kids were chained and imprisoned. The echoing laughter on the playgrounds was no more a melody to the earth beneath, and the little footsteps that played around, just flew away with the blustery winds.

Teens were tormented with sudden downpour of assignments and to crank it up a notch, vital examinations were brutally cancelled or postponed, keeping students on their toes and also, pushing them over the edge.

Humongous financial issues terrified the hell out of the adults. For some, their lives collapsed like a castle of cards. With terribly drooped incomes, purchasing even ration was like walking on thin ice.

 

What I mean to say is. The year 2020 was certainly, the worst of all of our nightmares heavily woven into the reality. There were absolutely no hopes of any good happening.

Or were there?

 

 

2020 was a good one too. It transformed you, moulded you. I don’t know if you’ve realised this, but you do have metamorphosed; you’re different now.

Hey!

LOOK AT YOURSELF!

No, seriously have a look.

 

Oh My God.

Think about this.

Are you really the same person you were before lockdown?

Are you?

 

You’re not!

Look at yourself man, what you’ve become in such short while. What, a few weeks or months maybe? What kinda person have you transitioned into! Isn’t this like the best thing ever?

 

No one told you this before, but wait. I want to tell you, that you are breathtakingly extraordinary.

Why? Let me tell ya.

You just wait, u there.

 

I know, it has been challenging, and you’ve been through tons of hardships lately. But no one was there to appreciate you, not for what you did, but the way you effortlessly engineered a way out of your social/personal barriers.

Not only that. 

You have, and you’ve always had your own struggles. 

Meltdowns, emotional breakdowns, anxiety, midnight tears, myriad of pressures.... 

 

So, for a moment, forget about the colossal complications in the world. Let’s just have the complete focus on you. Just you. Coz you deserve to be listened to.

 

I know. 

This year too, 

You've been broken... 

You've been terribly betrayed... 

You’ve been facing stuff no one knew about...

You've been left out sometime... 

You've been unnecessarily blamed on... 

You've been having emotional breakdowns at every night and it's been a nightmare to go to sleep since then. 

And also, 

You've been crying your heart out but no one was there to lend you a shoulder.

It was just you and your silent weeps. 

You've went through everything, on your own, and I'm proud of you actually, no matter how you gathered yourself and though you woke up every morning with the tear trails, you let the morning sunshine wipe them away, put on a badass smile and just let it go. You didn’t blame anyone; neither did you let yourself down. You matured; you gave yourself importance. 

For that, you are amazing. 

 

 

Also, apart from individual emotional wars, you witnessed an offbeat, but dynamite version of yourself!  You revolutionized into an amazing cook, a beautiful painter, a soulful singer, a melodious instrumentalist, a magical dancer, an awestrucking athlete and so much more!

Moreover, you discovered your soul. That’s all what counts.

No one told you this but... 

It is beautiful of you. And well, it has always been.

 Whenever you looked at yourself in the mirror, you probably looked at your flaws, which they aren’t, actually, but you did. Only did the mirror whisper to you underneath its breath, “how beautiful you are.”

 

Whenever you hid all your secret tears under your pillow, it always sang you to sleep, telling you how strong you are. Bet you never heard it, but it always does.

 

Whenever you watched the sun gracefully lighten up the entire city, the leaves and flowers into a splendid bloom, he gently peeked at you, and said “how amazing it is that you unknowingly light up so many lives and bring so much more smiles than I do. You are magical.”

 

Of course you are! Were you like this before?

2020 did wring the best out of you, right?

It taught us,

To reilluminate the beautiful bonds around us that were once dying,

To love yourself, unfiltered, ditching the insecurities and be amazed with how beautiful you really are,

To explore and find countless bomb versions of ourselves,

To cherish the marvels of nature and be one with it, as you sat at the windowpane, the sunshine frolicking over your cheeks.

 

It taught us to love, rather; live and value life.

 

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Life is so ironic, isn’t it?

It takes sadness to know happiness; it takes noise to appreciate silence, and absence to value presence.

All of this,

Just one year, taught us and left.