Tushti Dhingra
Indraprastha Global School, Noida
Well, what if there was an award for being original? Do you think anyone will ever
achieve it? Well, I don’t. Do you remember the last time you did not apply a face
mask to hide your scars, or do you remember a day when you did not wear a cap to
hide your hair? Or maybe a day you did speak your mind, what was trapped inside
you? Well, did you? It sounds too good to be real, right? You know none of us are
original. We all wear a mask of fakeness, where our originality is suffocated inside.
We often think maybe we are too much for our surroundings. Maybe we are too
sad for the world? And then we wear the mask of fakeness again!
But you know, we don’t wear it not intentionally; something forces us to do so.
But what?
The fear of people knowing yourself, myself. The fear of actually telling what you
are going through. But hey! Isn’t everyone wearing this mask?? What if we all
remove this mask together? Do you think we can express things better then? Do you
think then people may realise why you cannot make friends? Or why, sometimes,
you choose to be an observant rather than a speaker. Well, doesn’t it sound
serendipitous? A place where everyone recognises you and understands you because
we are no longer wearing masks! Masks of happiness, masks of success, masks of
sorrow. And, do you know, when you see people on social media looking so happy,
and then you also wear the same mask, that is because no one wants to share the
dreadful memories. When people share their success, do you also wonder how in
one go? Because no one chooses to show failure, everyone wants to wear the mask
of perfection! But why? Did God ever differentiate between a person who clinched
the road to success in a go and a girl who took 5 attempts to do it? Then why do we
have to?
You know, maybe we should all one day sit down, take a moment, take a breath,
remove the mask, sit down, and figure out why we spent so many years of our lives
wearing these masks. I could not have bought it! But where was this mask bought
from? A Mall? Well, it was bought from a room full of sad people who pretended to
be happy when we also wanted to look jovial, even though we chose to wear the
mask. The mask felt too surreal, too satisfying to look happy but just not be from the inside. To just show the world how happy we look! And today, we can’t just
resist removing it, right?
I hate Comparisons
Yet, I still compare myself,
with my own misery
I create the darkness of shadows,
In me, With my own struggles
Maybe I still hate myself,
for being myself.
Maybe I am the intruder,
Who chased negative paths.
It could be me,
who is the stormy dark cloud in the sky,
who spreads negativity rapidly
by just wanting
To be lent a shoulder to cry upon.
Yet, I still don’t know
the number of apologies I owe myself,
or the number of thank you(s) people owe to me,
for still being caged and not bothering them,
with my own misery.
Am I guilty, or the world?
Am I struggling or
the past I came from?
Let’s just forget that we bought the mask, remove it, throw it away, and live to
cherish ourselves and be who we are. Let’s ignore the fact that we ever cried looking
at ourselves in the mirror, saying, ‘I could have been more beautiful’
This is your sign to burn the mask today
