Well this is a story of a small town girl whose parents shifted into a huge city. The girl’s name was Lekha. So Lekha had recently shifted to a wonderful huge city.This city had everything n still the people in the city were never satisfied. She realized that the people in the city were always on the run unlike the ones in her small town. Before shifting in the city, she used to stay with her grandparents in a small town where everyone knew everyone’s name. Anyways, moving on with the story… So Lekha’s mum encouraged her to go out n play but Lekha was very shy. After about a week, her father’s boss & his family came for dinner in their house. He had two daughters named Kajal n Tanya. Kajal was quite overweight n had the airs n graces of someone who had seen everything though she was barely 2-3 years older than Lekha.

So it was Kajal who finally coaxed Lekha to come out of her shell n join the rest of the girls in the neighbourhood.

So the first day Lekha met them turned out to be a disaster… She did not have a good English accent n all the girls were conversing quite freely in English so even she tried… n it was quite sad becoz her efforts were pathetic So the girls started giggling at her.. When lekha returned home, she was in tears n narrated the incident to her mother. Her mother- Mrs lilavati was a very strong woman… she had learned to face troubles the hard way.. so when confronted with her daughter’s problem.. the only advice she gave was “ Lekha.. ur my daughter n I wont let u just crumble down like this… be confident with wat ur.. someday these girls will understand… but its no use wasting ur tears.”

Anyways the day never came when the girls “understood”.. all the more it kept getting worse.. n worse.. every night lekha would cry in her bed. But if asked that y don’t u leave these girls, her answers wud remain the same “ If I leave them then I will have no one to play with.. n I don’t want to be lonely”. Mrs lilavati didn’t interfere becoz she wanted her daughter to realize that everything in the world has its price though it broke her heart to c her little girl in so much of pain n anguish. Every evening, Lekha wud go to visit her friends with a renewed hope.. but they wud do everything in their power to crush her n make her realize that she wasn’t really worth being their friend but lekha persisted knowing that someday they would break…

Soon.. a little change was observed… Lekha to keep up with her frends had started watching MTV n had started reading a lot of books… She was slowly able to improve her writing…her accent improved… but her self-esteem did not… So as to ward off her sad thoughts.. she started devouring all types of books… at the age where girls only seem to read Nancy Drew n Hardy Boys, She had already read all the English classics n had started advancing upon authors like Rabindranath Tagore and had even the guts to try a book by Sidney Sheldon.. Her accent changed considerably n in school, she started writing small speeches n all her compositions showed real promise.

And so the wheels of time changed… n everything changed… Lekha had reached the last of her schooling year.. n then it happened. Her friends esp the leader of the group- Christina didn’t really like the fact that Lekha had actually overtaken her in many aspects. While Lekha had spent her time trying to hone her skills, Christina had spent that time wandering off with unknown boys n spoiling her academic results. So finally the BIG FIGHT happened…. It was over a small thing but all the feelings of humiliation which were bottled up inside kept bubbling out of Lekha’s mouth. And in a flash everything was over… her so-called friendship had finally been broken.

During the farewell from her school, Lekha was crowned “Miss twelthie” and it was like a cindrella’s day for her. But while being crowned, she had been asked to answer a couple of questions n when she had answered them… one of the member of the jury had promptly gotten up n asked her,” N so lady what kind of books do u read??? Bcoz I honestly love the way u speak”.

Hahaha…. N she had laughed…

So I guess its been a long story.. but there is something which I wanted to say… Lekha isn’t a fragment of imagination… she is real n she exists in me… You might wonder why have I written this story… bcoz I want people to know that they shouldn’t ever take any sort of humiliation from anyone… n remember ur critics are ur best friend bcoz after all they are the ones who push you to put ur best.