Upagupta: A Retelling

She was one of those people. The ones you see walking along beaches, waiting for messages in bottles, and seashells that aren't flawed. You had to admire her patience, for she would wait and wait, and never let the smile fade. Her bubble was rose tinted and hers alone. Until she invited you in, that is. She could convince you with her tales. She almost did that, convinced me! She was to me, one of those people who would never grow up. With her, it was a choice. Not that it made her less of a person. I admired her tenacity, her strong will. She believed in fairy tales the way I believed in blunt talk. She'd argue, tell me how she was right and I was wrong. If I had half her conviction, I'd be a stronger person.

And then the inevitable happened. She grew up. I thought she'd put up a fight. She just let it seep in, fill her being. The cynic in me should've rejoiced at this victory, but it didn't. I was scared; for her, for me. Then I met her again. I told her how growing up shouldn't have happened to her. It wasn't meant to happen to someone like her. She smiled at me. She hadn't fought it, obviously. Because it had been her choice. What makes you think growing up is bad, she asked? I believed in happiness once. Now that I'm wiser, I know it's true. Truer than you or me. So true that it's mine, waiting for me to fight, waiting for me to call it to me. Isn't that what growing up is all about?

That's when I realized I'd been fooling myself. I had a lot of growing up to do, the sheep in cynic's clothing that I was!


P.S. This isn't really supposed to make sense. I have an idea for a story, wanted to check how it'd look in abstract before I actually fleshed it out.

The story? Partly inspired from Upagupta. Sorry Tagore, I really really love the poem, I've wanted to recreate it for the last nine years. :D