You cannot Take It away From Me

Great people are sprinkled like seasoning by our Creator on the masses to spruce up lives. Sometimes to lead them, other times to entertain them and sometimes to just dazzle all with the glamour quotient.

Click, click, and click I highlight a few such great people and what is the one thread that strings them together? It is their birthday, nineteenth day of November.

Indira Gandhi was India’s Prime Minister for many years. No talking of her political decisions or beliefs. She is remembered by all as the most charismatic leader that India ever had. Tough yet elegant. Impeccable dressing style. Gave short cropped hair a character that became a wave with women who wanted their exterior to be read as “professional”. She was personality personified. In her speech, gait and gestures she was class apart.

I too have her within me. So what if my sari gets a little crumpled while hers remained pleated the entire day. My long unruly tresses if cropped will look like hers and I have the natural grey tuft at the front already. I can be groomed to add that element of personality. I know she had a lineage but I have anonymity and they are strikingly similar!

Calvin Klein! Do I hear you drool? The man who gave us designer jeans and innerwear. He went to New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. He became a household name and now a world wide name. From fashion Street in every town to Wall Street, he is a name to reckon with.

I went to Kitchen Institute of Technology, is there much of a difference? I run a household and wash jeans and innerwear everyday. Yes I am known too, try out the vegetable vendor to whom I owe some money and the corner grocer’s shop where I spend productive time bargaining and complaining.

Meg Ryan and Jodie Foster. Now do not get green with envy. Yes I know them. My tryst with celebrity began when I was a kid. It is all about one’s luck. You either have or you do not. Nothing to get green or pink with me. Meg had sent me an email once with the heading “You’ve Got Mail” and Jodie entered my life like a “Twister” and silenced me with her “Silence of The Lambs”. Now you get the connection. We three are deeply connected.

Of course I have kept the best for the last. My knock out punch. “I brought the first Miss Universe crown to India” read her opening lines of her biography. She is the tall, talented, beautiful and now a movie star. A heart throb of millions. Striking smile and also a poet. Intelligence is her middle name. She is Sushmita Sen. She can light up an entire universe by just her presence.

So? Is that what you are asking? Okay I did not bring home a crown or a hat for that matter but I have the head that can wear one. The difference in height can be overlooked just about eight inches. I can walk on stilts that will bring us close. Striking smile I do have. I have seen people gape open mouthed every time I break into a smile. The front two teeth are missing and I am not visiting the dentist soon. Foolishness is my middle name; after all there is a thin line that separates the two. My heart throbs a million times every time I try my hand at poetry, as I jerk out ill matched words. About lighting up the universe I cannot say much but humbly must admit that I do know how to light the gas burner.

But I have got to be special otherwise why would my Creator chuck me down to earth on the nineteenth day of November? I am still searching, forty three years now for that one reason being clubbed together with the elite, the high and the mighty.

Doorbell. Milkman grinning ear to ear, as he informs me that today’s milk is free. He must know it is my birthday today. Beaming, I was fumbling for the right words to thank him. Just then he said that his cow had given birth to a healthy calf this morning. Open mouthed I closed the door.

Welcome little calf; join the special brigade on the nineteenth day of November. Just the right companion I needed to feel at home amidst the august company.