The Happylots

She was born with wings, literally.

 

Care for a flashback? Okay, read on.

It was a new dawn in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Happylot. Mrs. Happylot opened her eyes wide from a dreadful darkness and while she was trying to figure out the blurry things and people around her, she was startled by the most beautifully annoying sound ever. It was baby Happylot whom the nurse was holding and trying to put to sleep. However, that baby just wouldn’t sleep and the annoying sound she cried out was far from beautiful. Well, it may sound beautiful to the Happylots. How do I know? C’mon, I am the ubiquitous devil.

 

Baby Happylot was soon growing into a pretty and beautiful child. The maid would bathe her early in the morning and then, she would take Baby Happylot to the school nearby. Baby Happylot was a shy and introvert child in her class. She was, however, the most intelligent one in the class and this was known to none except me and her. Once the teacher in the kindergarten asked if anyone could distribute the notebooks by reading the names written above them. It was hardly a month that the teacher had finished teaching the kids to write the complete set of alphabets, and while the teacher asked this to the students she did it only to arouse the class’ suspicion since she herself believed it was not possible. The teacher smiled at the innocent class and kept the bunch of notebooks at the front row desk where Baby Happylot was seated. The other teacher was reading out the names and distributing the notebooks. Baby Happylot was looking at the names labelled on the notebooks and reading them in her mind one after the other.

 

Baby Happylot was a pampered child although her parents were divorced one year after her birth. Her Dad, Mr. Happylot, was a charming and intelligent personality, and was a likeable character. He was of a medium height, with the perfect physique and demeanour. He had a wheatish complexion and brown eyes. He had many friends and admirers. And a lot of women admirers!

Mrs. Happylot was a beautiful lady, naïve and short-tempered. She stayed indoors after her marriage. She did not socialize much. Also, Mr. Happylot was insecure about her and, possessive.

 

Their marriage therefore, ended. Thank God!

 

Baby Happylot enjoyed the company of her grandmother and the two maids who looked after her. She loved to draw pictures and paint. She admired the way her grandmother used to present her culinary skills. Also, she loved to listen to the stories of ancient folklore narrated by granny with her own share of spices to it.

 

It is a wonder how Baby Happylot got her wings on her back. Nobody knew about this except her mother, father, grandmother and the two maids. Her delicate, furry wings would be covered with the dress she was made to wear. All her dresses were home spun and designed by her mother, Mrs. Happylot. This made Baby Happylot quite popular for her good looks and dressing style. She had many secret admirers in her class by the time she reached the seventh class. However, Baby Happylot hardly talked to anyone since she could not overcome her shyness. She was a sensitive, little fool. She had however, big and impossible dreams.

 

Baby Happylot was sixteen years old now, and her silence of all these years was filled by a terrible darkness when her Dad passed away due to pneumonia. Her grandmother too, had become feeble and was awaiting the call of a peaceful death. Her mother used to make little money with the sewing she did. Baby Happylot was struggling with her own problems amidst all the real world trouble. She wanted to take flight to her dreamy world for real now.

 

Baby Happylot was sent to the city where she found herself awoken to a new life altogether. The urban lifestyle appeared fascinating to her but, also shallow at the same time. She was crushed under the burden of too many conflicting ideas, ideologies, and thoughts. No matter how much she wanted to seek answers, she had no access to any. She would gaze at the boutiques and stores from the outside while walking down to College with amazement; and, the sight of beggars would make her equally morose. She would close herself like a sunflower at the absence of the sun and ponder about the ugliness at the heart of the otherwise, beautiful city. “Is beauty a curse or some illusion that exists only to conceal the ugliness deep down?” she would think. This conflicting thought of beauty and ugliness would make her think of herself as the city, beautiful from outside but, ugly from within, since she too, could not reveal her true identity and had to hide her wings behind her.

 

Baby Happylot turned eighteen. She was not overshadowed by her shyness anymore since she had long been battling with her own flaws. Not that shyness is a flaw but, it was definitely considered so by her family, her near ones and her supposedly dear ones. In her College life, there was a lot happening around her and she hardly had time to keep aloof from the world or worry about her own shortcomings. In the last two years, she had made some good friends. One of them was Perseus. In no time, they started liking each other’s company a lot. Perseus would do anything to cheer Baby Happylot up whenever she was bogged down or upset about her mom or any other important thing that mattered a lot to her.

Perseus was often mocked at by his peers in College for his Greek name. Perseus had a weird father and he had a fascination towards Greek mythology. He was a teacher by profession. Like Baby Happylot, Perseus too, was from the countryside. They had a lot in common and they both grew up far from the crowd.

It was during the autumn break in College that Perseus proposed to Baby Happylot to come and visit his home so that they could spend some more time together and Perseus could show Baby Happylot his friends and cousins and his father to whom he had mentioned about Baby Happylot. Baby Happylot was thrilled about the idea when Perseus was talking all this to her over the phone. Baby Happylot suddenly realized that Perseus might propose to her and want to take their friendship to the next level. Baby Happylot was all tears when she thought this and the sorrowful consequences it would bear if she accepted Perseus’ proposal. She always had this fear within her and she kept battling this fear within. Now, it was time to confront this fear. However, there was this intense agony of the possibility of losing Perseus and their friendship altogether. How could she tell or even show Perseus that she had wings which is so unlikely for human beings! She remembered how her mother and grandmother used to narrate fairytales to her when she was a child and how they would try avoiding the question of the existence of a Prince Charming. Instead, they would narrate how the Princess triumphs through all the hardships alone and wins the respect and love of her fellow beings. Therefore, Cinderella did go to the ball, but one of her glass stilettos wasn’t left behind but she would go back to her stepsisters dressed like a Princess and rid herself of them by claiming her independence and getting her rights back from them and helping out the poor and the helpless. The similar kind of climaxes happened to Snow White, Rapunzel and so on.

 

Baby Happylot decided not to go to Perseus and left for her country home without telling anybody about anything. On her way back home, the memories from College days, her times spent with friends and Perseus in particular raced through her mind and rolled down her cheeks as tears. It was a tough decision, but she had to live up to her own pupose in life as she reasoned it that way.

She hugged her mother, Mrs. Happylot. Her grandmother had died already and she was not informed about it as Mrs. Happylot did not want to bother Baby Happylot with any such news during her two-year term in College. They both embraced each other and cried out every emotion to fulfilment. Baby Happylot wanted to help her mother and set up her own designing work in their town and teach children.

Stranger than fiction, eh! Let me watch over her now as I sip hot coffee perched atop this old and wise tree.