Metamorphosis

She was uncomfortable, a misfit, and maybe a little quaint. The way she wore her bangs, the way her lips curled when she spoke; all of these were reasons for people to find her weird. She was unfamiliar with the local language, and she spoke English with a foreign accent; yet she looked very South Indian. That was enough for people to think she had an "attitude problem". People said she was a girl who looked down at others, so they stood far from her and judged her.

She sat in a quiet forgotten corner of the classroom, right next to the back door that nobody used. It was perhaps her escape route. She had an excuse for not staying back after class like most others did to just "hang out" - a diploma class in the neighbouring college. Everybody called her a loner.

For a brief period of time, a friend walked into her life; someone who seemed to understand her. She opened up to this friend like she hadn't to anyone else in the class before,  and they shared common-interest stories about boyfriends and movies. It seemed fun for a while, but frivolous as their conversation topics were, the friendship too fizzled out in a frivolous fight.

Then another friend came along, a girl who was quite like herself, although neither realised it at the time. They both secretly thought of the other as being a little strange. Yet, they had decided to be friends, and friends they remained because, they both knew in the depths if their hearts, that the other one was lonely.

They did not have interesting conversations; they were limited to details about class and assignments. Each of the girls had learnt, from individual experiences, that friendship often evaded her and friends were hard to come by. By limiting their conversations to mundane topics, they were both guarding themselves from the heartbreak of losing another friend. Having someone to sit beside them was itself enough, they had learnt.

As the year progressed, Time slowly wore down the walls they had built around themselves. It began to nudge and tug at their hearts ever so slowly, lest it scare them away. They gave in, and fell into conversation, crossing over into each other's guarded territories, asking about home, dreams, holiday expectations...it was a day when they discovered how similar they were, and yet how different!

When the course came to a end, the Class said their goodbyes as they left the safety of college to the big world waiting outside. Some chose well-laid roads, others ventured to explore roads less travelled, even others chose to carve out paths of their own. As for the quaint duo, they had both returned to their homes in different corners of the country, one to study further, the other finding her first job. Years rolled by and Time, which had once brought them close, now drifted them along in different directions. They became nothing more than Facebook friends; an occasional status update or photo being the only stories that kept them aware of each other's lives.

Six years went by before the two met again. They were no longer the 19-year olds who were stumbling through the first phase of adulthood as though pushed abruptly out of childhood. They were no longer unsure of themselves, or ashamed of their introvertedness. They had learnt, from experience, that they were rare and precious beings. They had learnt to love themselves. They had gone through ups and downs and found their place in the world. It seemed surreal to both of them, seeing the other having blossomed so beautifully into women of worth. They had been caterpillars, seemingly ugly; now they were butterflies, soaring gloriously. They were admired by many now but, at that moment, they felt grateful for the other's company on days when they could not fly.

PS: The characters in this article are fictional, even though they have been inspired by certain real-life experiences. I admit to some level of bias in the writing.