The Second best birthday in the life of a kid who searched for stories.

The second best birthday of this life was on May 14, 2010. Well the only thing was, no one knew it was that day.

I dug a CD pouch out of one of the dusty boxes in my basement that had layers of 10 years of dust on it as it stayed untouched after 2010, the day I packed it all in the box and left the box at my dad's place, hoping to forget it and the man and the house that had been home for the first ten years of my life. Now, since the beginning of my quest to escape reality that started when from as long as my memory takes me back.

It takes me back to a kid who is three, begging her grandmother to tell her more and more bedtime stories. It had to be grandma because it's an universal rule that it has to be grandma, and maybe because her mom was shit at telling stories and her father was more of a painter and whenever she asked him for stories he would give her a piece of art and ask me to make her story from it. So, that kid ate and slept by her grandma, who told her stories of Krishna and the Mahabharata. This is how war becomes a central part of her life, and wouldn't leave her till she would die. So, this kid grew up to be a reader of comics and art whose father would buy her thousands of books and relish her reading. In this inescapable quest for stories and to listen to some tales that took her out of her world, she travelled from words to words and person to person. So, her uncle who decided that she was ready to hear complicated stories, began telling her tales of wars again. So, this five year old kid's bedtime tale is The Matrix, The day the earth stood still and Lord of the rings, narrated by her uncle and the tales of Mahabharata from her grandma. Now, she realizes that she wants more. She wants moving images to give her some visuals, which she could have imagined herself if only she had seen one like that before or had better imagination. Now, in her desperate search for movies, she found her father's CD pouch that had too many science fiction and horror. This horror films she saw would stay ingrained forever in her, the young mind of a 5 year old stained with horror. The shows on her TV screen, the ones she loved : Phineas and Ferb, Dexter's lab , Jackie Chan, Kid vs Cat, and countless others satisfied her search for a temporary escape and she was content. But she wanted more. Something like the stories of Mahabharata and the Lord of the rings she had listened to. She is 9 now and she has just laid her hands on the worn out copies of the Harry Potter her mother had on her bedside. It was her mother's escape from her life and it became this kid's escape from her reality. Now, she was Hermione Granger and she loved Draco Malfoy. Listening to the Hedwig's theme would make even her 19 year old self cry. Well, she was always criticized for being too expressive and having a huge spectrum of emotions, but she has decided that it was her and wouldn't be changed. It is edging on to her birthday, on May 14, 2010. Now, nobody knows it is the 14th because it was registered as 15th and even her parents celebrate her birthday on 15th. But she always had a longing and an unreasonable attachment to 14th and wanted people to wish her on that day instead of 15th. Now there was her uncle who knew. Minutes to midnight on the 14th he calls her and asks her to open her cupboard. There it was: a CD pouch with all three parts of the Lord of the rings and the 14 parts of BR chopra's Mahabharata that ran in the DD from 1987 and the gladiator. The movies she never imagined that existed came to life in her TV. She stood entranced, seeing the characters she only imagined about come to life. It was the best night of life till today, as she is 19. She never really knew anything other than stories and the men who told them. She grew up over the years meeting several storytellers and seeing them on screen. She is 19 now. Her birthday, she is in Hyderabad. On the 14th May 2019, her uncle calls her and tells a story of the world. The war on consciousness, the holographic universe and the real face of the government, aliens and rebirths. It went on for hours. This would be the first best birthday. She could talk to him because no one called that night. The others would always call the next night.

Now, that she has gained and lost several people who could tell her a story, she wanted to tell one too. Her 19 year old self, actually sat to write a novel of 90,000 words and she wrote 28000 words in just 7 days. Her potential was extraordinary but her self doubt was crippling. The words she wrote that her friends loved, she hated. She doubted and she almost gave up. I don't really know if she would ever really give up on anything.

So, two days back when I dug this CD pouch out of the home I visited after 10 years of leaving it and 5 years of my dad's death. It was a catharsis of nostalgia and an air of quiet death of him and me. Nothing ever stuck with me like BR Chopra's Mahabharata. It wasn't religion or something. It was the acknowledgement that there was no better epic and it's magnitude was infinite. The music from the series empowered and soothed. Just like how "Now we are free" From the Gladiator stuck with her. Two days back when I dug this up, I saw every kid I was and every story that was a very part of my soul. And still is. And this 19 year old kid still is searching for stories and struggling to tell my own inspite of the self doubts.