2. Listens to her head..

Kirtana and Maliha, reached home after an hour long drive. The drive back had been a mix of awkward conversations and stating the obvious, as was customary of all first-time, in-person conversations. Kirtana had shown Mali some parts of the city as they drove to ‘Magnolia’, the name of the apartment complex ‘Kit’ lived in. It had just rained the evening before Mali had arrived and today the sun was out, and the weather was just right, pleasant and sunny, the kind of weather most people expected of the city. Mali had commented on how strange it felt to be back in a big city again... to which Kirtana made a joke about how, the ‘city’ was getting undone as it was getting done - pointing to all the roads that had been dug up or flooded in the rain.

Mali was delightful; she was everything Kirtana had expected her to be, and more. Kirtana instantly found how Maliha could make people feel at ease around her, and that is what made her behave even more strangely around her. She was determined to make the best first impression. But there was a part of her that could not help wondering why she needed Mali’s approval!

Kirtana had just celebrated her 27^th birthday about a month ago. Well celebrated was a stretch! She had had a rough year on the personal front. For the first time in her life she had found a man who she felt she loved. This had happened very suddenly two years ago, where all such love stories begin, at a party, a friend of a friend of a friend…Well it ended badly! They wanted different things, correction: he did not want what she did, and so they had a bad ending to what seemed like a good relationship. Now as all break ups go, it is never easy, but Kirtana had been affected a lot more than she realized. There was a part of her that stopped trusting her own judgments; it was as though she was punishing herself for not seeing a bad man hiding in the guise of the man she thought she loved.

This break up, also served as a wake-up call. Kirtana had not been happy in her relationship, and she was not happy with her job and she was not happy in life. All her planning had not taken into account this crucial ingredient to making a good life for herself. She always felt like something was missing…

Kirtana celebrated this birthday, making lofty promises to herself. She had always been a person in control of a situation. She had very early on in life learnt that she could be prepared for any situation if she organized her life. She had been a great student through school and college and good at everything she did, but she could never quite shake the fact that she was at some level quite... dull! She was not spontaneous at all, and that made her come off as rigid and a bit serious. What helped her get the attention she always got...at first of course, were her striking good looks. Kirtana had the grace of a dancer. In her eyes though, she was quite ordinary, but to the rest of the world that saw her, she was a girl that always got the second look.

Kirtana had always been self conscious; to her nothing was ever good enough about herself. And so that made her try very hard... try to be many things she was not.

She had a theory about herself. She felt her timing was always just a tiny bit off... she was always at the right place, but just a little bit early, maybe it was because she had everything planned so perfectly! She thought no one ever gave her the kind of attention she wanted. She always thought her friends liked her more when she was not around, in her absence her ‘presence’ was more appreciated than when she was actually around…or so she believed! This theory lent heavily to why she let herself seem boring ” why try anyway?” she thought!

She had promised herself that this was going to be a year of new beginnings. Her birthday was always a day that she made big resolutions! She was going to learn to be Kirtana, she was going to find a way to be at peace with the voices in her head! She was going to learn how to have fun… and in turn learn to be fun!

And she would do this with a little help from Maliha...only Mali did not know it yet!